Untitled - MK Hobson

Transcription

UNCORRECTED ADVANCE READING COPY
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must be checked against the finished book.
The Warlock’s Curse is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Mary Hobson
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: October 2012
ISBN: 978-1-938-86000-3
www.demimonde.com
Translation of “Alcestis” by Rainer Maria Rilke used by permission of
A. S. Kline
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012943773
Once more he still saw
the girl’s face, that turned towards him
with a smile, bright as hope,
that was almost a promise: fulfilled,
to come back up from the depths of Death
to him, the Living –
At that, indeed, he threw
his hands over his face, as he knelt there,
so as to see nothing more than that smile.
“Alcestis,” Rainer Maria Rilke
Prologue
M assachusetts Colony
Full Moon
S
pecial Magistrate Anson Kendall sat on the ladderback chair his son
had fetched him and watched blood drip from the tips of Aebedel
Cowdray’s fingers. Three days ago, the warlock’s hands had been
fine and white as a woman’s, framed by pristine silk cuffs edged with
Flemish lace. Now, the cuffs were soiled and torn, the lace stiff and
brown, and the slim fingers swollen and purple.
Peine forte et dure. Punishment, strong and hard. The practice of
pressing a warlock beneath heavy stones was commonly reserved for
cases in which the accused refused to make a plea—but in Cowdray’s
case, no plea was necessary. He was an unabashed practitioner of
Satan’s arts; two score and five had he lived as a warlock, traded as
one in South Carolina and Pennsylvania and New York, colonies that
reckoned the weight of a man’s purse over that of his sins.
The colony of Massachusetts, however, was not so indulgent.
Governor Bradstreet, who had commanded Cowdray’s capture,
had also ordered the swiftest of trials and the speediest of convictions.
These would have been followed by the hastiest of executions—had the
Special Magistrate not persuaded the governor to countenance a delay.
A slight delay. Just three days, which Anson Kendall might use to discover
how to save his wife’s soul. For Cowdray had laid a bewitchment upon
her, a spell that only the warlock knew how to unmake. And no matter
how many stones it took, Anson had sworn to learn the secret.
2
The Warlock’s Curse
Three days ago, Cowdray had been defiant. He had laughed as
the first stone was placed on his chest and had declared the second
“a goose’s feather.” But three days without water, under the everincreasing weight of the stones, had left his eyeballs bulging, red as
grapes, and his tongue as thick as an ox’s. Three days of unrelenting
torture had curbed his pride. Anson had permitted himself the luxury
of hope.
But as night had become day, and day had passed to night and
back to morning again, and stone upon stone had been added, a terrible certainty slumped Anson’s shoulders, as unbearable as the weight
crushing the unholy vault of the warlock’s chest.
“You will never tell,” he whispered, allowing himself to finally
realize it. He watched the man struggle for each breath, cracked lips
moistened only by trickles of fresh blood. There was nothing Anson
could offer him now. He could not promise to spare Cowdray’s life,
he could not promise him ease or even respite from his suffering. The
worst had been done—more than the worst—and Cowdray had not
broken.
Anson sank back, releasing a long breath. It was nearly midnight.
Over the gallows field the rising moon hung like a ghostly pearl set in
battered pewter. A bitter wind whistled off Massachusetts Bay, rattling
the winter-bare branches of the hemlocks. The air smelled of smoke
and snow-sodden soil and mud-damp stone and blood.
He could hear a woman sobbing. The shudders and heaves were
tinged with a note of frenzy. It was Cowdray’s whore—a dark poxy
slut with red hair who had accompanied him from South Carolina,
heedless of the dangers of entering Massachusetts. One of his witches,
no doubt. Young and foolish. The others of his coven—it was rumored
that there were hundreds—had wisely stayed away.
Anson gestured to his son, who stood with several of Governor
Bradstreet’s men, warming themselves around a bright leaping bonfire. James Kendall was thirteen, tall as a man but not yet so broad in
the shoulders; the sleeves of his black coat hung down over his hands.
He was at his father’s side in two steps. He was a diligent boy.
Prologue
3
Anson spoke so softly that his son had to bend down to hear him.
“Another stone. The largest that remains,” he said. “And quiet that
damned harlot.”
James swallowed, but did not speak. Then he nodded, once. He
went back to where the men were standing, and Anson could hear
them murmuring quietly among themselves. No warlock had ever
stood seven stones. No magistrate had ever commanded it.
Anson passed a hand over his eyes, pressed the aching orbs with his
fingers. He heard rough words being spoken to the crying woman, and
her answering screams of misery as she saw the seventh stone being
lifted. There was the sound of a blow, a muffled thud as the woman
was cast to the ground. His head was throbbing. He felt small and
empty, keenly aware of his own cruelty. He knew in that moment, that
there was something important in him that he could not find anymore,
something that he would not be able to find again, but he did not care.
He was watching a house burning, and the screams of the whore were
his wife’s screams. Sarah could not be saved. All he could do was throw
on more wood so that he might not have to suffer her suffering much
longer.
It took three of Governor Bradstreet’s men to hoist the largest of
the flat stones they had retrieved from the banks of the Forest River.
As they settled it carefully atop the others, Cowdray released a long,
wheezing groan, a bitter note on a cracked pipe. His eyes closed, lids
barely stretching over the grossly protuberant orbs, and then he was
still.
Anson waited a few moments then leaned forward to confirm
that the warlock was finally dead. But as he brought his face close,
Cowdray’s blood-red eyes flew open. He spat. Blood and spittle thick
as porridge flecked Anson’s cheek.
“More ... will come ...” Cowdray rasped, pushing out each word
on a wave of pain and fury, like a woman birthing a child. “Cannot
... kill us ... all.”
With the back of his hand, Anson wiped away the bloody spittle.
Whatever part of his humanity had fled had taken his sanity with it,
4
and now all was burning in the house of his imagination with his wife’s
living, breathing, dead body.
“Yes I can,” he said. “I will.”
His own father, the great Determination Kendall, used to have
visions—divine visions, gifts from Almighty God. Now, looking into
the bloody depths of Cowdray’s eyes, Anson was struck with a divine
vision of his own, as sharp and staggering as a hammer—blow to his
forehead. He saw bodies. Hundreds of bodies, thousands of them,
slack and lifeless, witches and warlocks, swinging from gallows against
skies aglow with flames and smoke.
Anson Kendall had never been a cruel man, and his father had
despised him for it.
Determination Kendall had been an inquisitor of highest renown,
in great demand throughout the colonies as a Special Magistrate for
the Courts of Assistants who had witches to be tested and tried. Anson
could not remember a time when he did not travel with his father (his
mother having died in childbed), but the beginning of his service as his
father’s assistant—and his father’s harsh assessment of him—he could
trace with painful clarity to his eighth year. Lacking other assistants,
his father had deemed him a big enough boy to turn the thumbscrews
on a young witch. Oh, how the girl had screamed. Anson could not
bear it. He fled the room in tears. Determination found him vomiting
behind a hayrick.
“God hates a coward,” Determination had sneered. It was the first
time Anson had heard those words, but it would not be the last.
Determination’s belief in the unredeemable evil of witches was
brilliant in its purity. His ears listened for accusations of milk-souring
and cattle-foundering and babe-smothering as if they were a melody
that pleased him. He was deaf to sweeter notes; tales of nurse-women
who used magical arts to succor the ailing, or cunning-men who read
the weather to augur auspicious times for sowing.
Anson, though, had wondered. Perhaps such creatures could not
be said to be in God’s favor, but were they truly in Satan’s service?
Prologue
5
He never shared such doubts with his father, of course.
Determination would have accounted them blasphemous; proof of a
weak, unguarded mind tainted by close proximity to the evil they faced
every day. He might begin to look for marks or blots on his son’s body,
for any special fondness for cats or rats or black dogs. And looking for
them he would find them, and Anson might find himself in thumbscrews, facing the flames.
His father served a fierce and implacable God, the kind that sacrificed sons.
But Anson was a clever enough boy, and remaining beneath the
threshold of his father’s scrutiny was as simple as keeping his lips
pressed tightly together. And Determination’s righteous mind was far
too occupied with higher pursuits to even notice his son’s persistent
silence, far less attempt to winkle out what seditious thoughts might
lay behind it. What small free time he had was dedicated to penning
his magnum opus, a treatise he called the Malignia Veneficas Americae.
He wrote at night, by the weak flickering light of a tallow candle, after
the subjects of that day’s inquiries had been locked away to suffer ‘til
cockcrow.
His great addition to the scholarship of witchcraft was to delineate its schools. He detailed the unique practices of blood witches and
earth witches and showed the ways in which they differed. He wrote
of less common kinds of witches, those who could turn the Bible itself
inside—out to summon power—speaking the Lord’s Prayer in reverse,
or confounding sensible individuals with stories and follies that left
them dazed and vulnerable. These last, Determination wrote, were
the hardest to detect, for their sorcery was exceeding subtle and sometimes barely distinguishable from mere politics or persuasion. Much
simpler to uncover were the blood witches, barbarous fiends who drew
their power from the living, agonized blood of humans.
Witches like Aebedel Cowdray.
When they first heard of Aebedel Cowdray, Determination was at
the zenith of his power and prestige. His treatise had been published
to great acclaim. England’s Witchfinder General himself, Matthew
6
Hopkins, had proclaimed it a novum malleum—a new hammer in the
never-ending battle against sorcerous criminality. Determination
found himself in greater demand than ever, each day bringing a fresh
batch of summons from villages and towns desperate for aid in their
prosecution of local malefactors.
Travelling to answer one such, they had stopped for the night at
an inn, where Determination had happened upon an old colleague,
a German witch-hunter by the name of Eisenbach. As old men will,
the two had fallen into commiseration about the wicked ways of the
world. Eisenbach had lamented particularly the New World’s lax attitude toward der hexenmeisters, so different from the admirable strictness
of his own native land.
“One need only look at Aebedel Cowdray to see how servants of
evil are coddled in America!” Eisenbach had seethed, slamming down
his tankard so hard that foam flecked his grimy sleeve.
Cowdray’s name not being familiar to father or son, Eisenbach
proceeded to delineate the specifics of the man’s notoriety, how he
lived and traded openly as a warlock in the lower colonies, keeping
homes and offices in both South Carolina and New York.
“He’s a slave trader. His great success comes from the fact that he
performs some sort of unholy rite upon his blackamoors. It makes them
wonderful placid, far more than such beasts are by nature.” Eisenbach
leaned forward, relishing the telling as much as Determination did the
hearing. “He does a thriving trade with the plantation owners in the
Carolinas and the West Indies. They have thrown their fortunes in
with his, and as they have no wish to see their investments ruined, he
will never be prosecuted, howsoever rank his sins!”
Determination snorted with outrage. Baring his rot-pitted teeth
in a grimace, Eisenbach had further inflamed him with tales of
Cowdray’s riches, of his fine velvet coats and his cuffs of silk edged
with lace, of how the warlock had ruined scores of virgins and lured
good married women from their hearths to dance with the devil in the
full moon’s light.
Prologue
7
“And naught can be done about it,” Eisenbach had concluded,
eyes sparkling as he looked over his tankard at Determination.
Determination had said nothing in answer, but Anson had always remembered that moment. His father, like God, would not be mocked.
Later, as they were preparing for sleep, Determination had been
strangely pensive.
“The abomination’s very name chilled me,” he mused, as he removed his heavy boots. “As if I had heard it before. But I am sure I
have not. And yet”—he dropped a boot to the floor with a thump—“I
feel as if someone has walked over my grave.”
But the morning brought them renewed vigor and work, for they
were to interrogate a whole family of witches, sin-shackled from the
centenarian grandfather all the way down to the newborn infant son.
And with such pleasures facing him, and many similar subsequent
pleasures, Determination put Cowdray out of his thoughts.
It was, Anson often reflected, surely the happiest time of his father’s life.
It had been the happiest time in Anson’s life as well, even though
he was plagued by night-horrors so extreme that the brightest light
of day did not completely dispel them. Even though he could never
stop his hands from shaking. Even though the screaming of tormented
witches had taken up residence in his brain, and sometimes the only
way he could find peace was to cut his own flesh with a sharp knife,
releasing the screams on a warm trickle of blood. Because it was at
that time, in Anson’s eighteenth year, that his father decided he must
take a wife.
The Inquisitors Kendall, as they were coming to be known
throughout the colonies, were amassing a respectable fortune. Anson
must produce sons to carry on their good work. No one—least of all
Anson—expected that it would be a love-match.
It was certainly not love at first sight. Sarah Roarke—the youngest
daughter of the modest, observant Roarkes of Salem—was not at all
beautiful. But she was lively and spry, with a tendency to laugh more
8
often than was theologically approved. When they were together, they
never spoke of witches or sin or what methods of torture were best for
small children. His hands shook less when she held them, and once,
when they were allowed to sit up together after the rest of the household had retired, he fell asleep with his head on her shoulder and did
not dream at all.
Money was settled on them from both sides of the family, and the
newlyweds took a fine house on Port Street. Years passed and children
followed; James, and then Abigail. Anson began to think of how he
might use his growing stature as a householder to petition for a release
from his father’s service. He began to imagine himself pursuing a new
career, one more suitable to his nature—binding books or keeping a
coffee-house.
But the demand for the services of the Inquisitors Kendall did
not diminish; rather, they increased with each passing year. And each
year, Aebedel Cowdray’s name came to them more often, from the
gossiping lips of the men who were his father’s closest associates. The
wickedest man in the New World, he was called. A blood-sorcerer whose hand no
earthly authority can stay.
It was an outrage. Unlike their usual targets, Cowdray was no
crook-backed old woman who dabbled in herbs and spoke to her cats;
he was a true demon, worldly and sly, infamous as a brute fornicator
and worse. And yet, the law could not—or rather, would not—touch
him. Cowdray’s protected existence made a mockery of all their efforts. What good their prosecutions, if the worst of the sinners was
forever beyond their reach?
Determination’s outrage did not become obsession, however, until
Old Mother Grax told them of Aebedel Cowdray’s snuff box.
Old Mother Grax was a hunchbacked hedgewitch accused of
causing her neighbor’s chickens to lay black eggs with serpents in
them. The Kendalls hung her strappado to extract the names of her
confederates; it was one of Determination’s favorite methods of interrogation. By this time, Anson had well-practiced techniques for
distancing himself from the horror of it. He would pretend that he
Prologue
9
was simply watching someone else’s hands. He would imagine Sarah
singing to him, as she did sometimes at night. She sang terribly, tunelessly and without rhythm, but it was the most beautiful thing in the
whole world. He could lose himself in that remembered song, and it
felt as if he was no longer even in his human body, and something else
managed his brutal activities. His father had accounted this a great
blessing, believing that it was evidence of the Divine Spirit working
within his son, but Anson had his doubts that the Divine Spirit could
be so cold; distant and passionless as a frozen moon in a winter sky.
(Now, as he sat in the ladderback chair, watching Aebedel Cowdray
die beneath seven stones, his father’s words made more sense, and
Anson did not doubt the presence of the Divine Spirit, nor that it was
cold, distant, and passionless.)
Under torture, the old witch-women usually babbled about
Beelzebub, tales Determination deemed deceitful and useless. But
when Old Mother Grax, mad with agony, had promised she would
tell them of Aebedel Cowdray’s dark masterwork—a magical artifact
he had been refining for decades—Determination had been intrigued.
So intrigued that he did something his son had never seen him do. He
eased the woman’s torment so that she might speak more freely. The
old witch’s tale gushed forth.
According to Mother Grax, Cowdray had taken a small box of
silver—a box such as might hold snuff—and he had sorcelled it to
contain all of Hell within its confines. Into this torment Cowdray
could consign living souls stolen from human victims. Misery and
agony being the true fuel of blood-sorcerers like Cowdray, the snuff
box thus represented a constant, ready supply of power. Power that
would continue to grow as the pain and suffering of the imprisoned
souls compounded.
Cowdray had been filling the box with souls taken from the African
slaves in which he traded. Taking the soul killed some—those who
were old or weak from strain or injury. But the young and strong could
survive without souls, for a time. The ritual left them mindless, forgetful, directionless creatures—but they could work the fields, and they
10
were placid and tractable, and as such they brought even higher prices
than slaves with their souls intact.
“Monstrous!” Determination had whispered, at the conclusion of
this terrible recitation. He pressed her with questions in quick succession: where was the snuff box? How could it be found? How could it
be destroyed? But before she could answer any of these, Old Mother
Grax’s pain-ruddied face had drained of color. Her rheumy eyes focused on the wall behind them.
“Alas, he is here!” She moaned in sudden terror. “Do you not see
his shadow? There, there! Ah, master! Forgive a foolish old woman!
Forgive me, Lord!”
The Inquisitors Kendall had looked around themselves,
Determination clutching at the great red cross he wore around his
neck, but they saw nothing. No dark shadow, no hint of malice or
magic. So perhaps it was only fear that caused Old Mother Grax to
expire as she did, quite suddenly, great gouts of blood flowing from her
nose down her wrinkled chin.
“Of one thing I am sure: Aebedel Cowdray will not long be satisfied with the souls of heathens,” was Determination’s first grim conclusion. “Ere long, he will seek souls of greater merit, those of white
Christian men.”
But, having decided to take the cause for his own, Determination
was at a loss for how to proceed. Cowdray had carefully confined his
business dealings to the middle and southern colonies. His main trading offices were in New York, whose governor—the indulgent sinner
William Penn—had once released an old dame accused of maleficum
with the infamous pronouncement, “you are at perfect liberty to ride
on broomsticks, as I know of no law against it.” Enticing Cowdray to
leave such safe harbor seemed nearly impossible.
Thus, when the Inquisitors Kendall sought audience with Governor
Penn—with the intention of exhorting him to do his Christian duty
and send Cowdray to face God’s justice in Massachusetts—they ex-
Prologue
11
pected little succor. But while the chance of success was slight, they
knew it was greater than any they could expect further south.
They did not, however, expect their slim hopes to be dashed so
thoroughly as they were when they were shown into Governor Penn’s
office, and were received not only by the governor, but by his honored
guest—Aebedel Cowdray himself.
Cowdray was tall and well-formed. He had brilliantly white teeth
and curling black hair and eyes the color of frozen seawater. He was
dressed even more richly than all the tales about him had suggested.
Every inch of his coat was embroidered with silken floss and gold wire,
his stockings were snow-white and fine, and his sleeves dripped with
lace.
“These are the Inquisitors Kendall?” Cowdray’s gaze had encompassed them both, but Anson had felt the warlock’s eyes hang upon
him, particularly. “It is said you gentlemen have some quarrel with
me. But I have none with either of you. I simply wish to conduct my
business.”
“Business in partnership with the Author of Misery himself,”
Determination growled. He had clutched the cross around his throat
tightly, as if wishing he could use it as a weapon. He cast a fiery gaze
on Governor Penn. “You have read my letter, sir. You know the crimes
this filth stands accused of.”
“I have read your letter as well,” Cowdray interjected, raising his
clean-shaven chin haughtily. “Your claims are ludicrous, based upon
the lunatic rantings of a poor old woman you tortured to death.” He
paused. “But it matters not. My slaves are mine to do with as I will.
What I do with them ... magical or not ... is of no concern to a couple
of hired Massachusetts murderers.”
“You ... dare!” Rage made Determination stumble over the words.
“We do the Lord’s work, you abomination! And while your slaves are
indeed yours, bought and paid for, well do I know that you will not be
satisfied with them. Such souls must seem mealy bread to one as fine
as you. You will soon seek stronger meat.”
12
“How he rants!” Cowdray drawled, in Penn’s direction. “Have you
heard quite enough, my good William?”
“Quite enough,” Penn said. Throughout the whole interview, he
had been paying little attention, focusing instead on the signing of
several documents that seemed to require his urgent attention. “Have
them shown out.”
“Your honor!” Determination cried. “This is unconscionable!”
“You gentlemen are a credit to New England,” Penn observed, as
his secretary moved to bodily usher them from the room. “Indeed, you
have confirmed, with admirable thoroughness, every suspicion about
our observant brethren that ever I have conceived.”
This parlor witticism drew a dry snicker from Cowdray and
a bellow of fury from Determination. The secretary had to push
Determination toward the door. Anson followed. And as he was at
the threshold, watching his father rebuke the secretary with hot words
containing promises of hell and damnation, he was suddenly aware of
Cowdray’s presence at his shoulder, cold and dark and smelling of silk.
“Tell your father to have a care,” Cowdray spoke in a voice so low
that Anson could not tell if the words were really spoken aloud at all.
“If stronger meat I do seek, I could look farther and fare worse than
the tender morsels of your regard. Your wife’s name is Sarah. Your
children are James and Abigail.”
Anson spun, a wrathful exhalation on his lips, but there was no one
behind him. Aebedel Cowdray and Governor Penn stood together at
the far end of the room. The governor had poured out little glasses
of port and they spoke with civilized anticipation of the delicacies
that awaited them at the dinner table. Neither man looked up as the
Inquisitors Kendall were thrown into the street, and the door slammed
behind them.
Anson had wanted to flee New York at that moment, on the very
next coach that would take them back to the safety of Massachusetts.
He did not dare tell his father of Cowdray’s threat, for the old man
was already inflamed to the point of apoplexy. Determination had
Prologue
13
insisted that they wait outside the governor’s home, lurking like a pair
of brigands, until Cowdray finally emerged, well after midnight, sated
with drink and food. Determination refrained from accosting the
man physically, but as Cowdray began his walk home, Determination
followed him, loudly censuring him with every step. There were few
passers-by at that time of night, but those there were watched with
amazement as Determination hurled imprecations at Cowdray’s back.
“Hear me, Satan-spawn!” Determination roared. “You Godforsaken atrocity, abortion of Babylon’s whore, misery of mankind!
Your crimes are seen by the Lord God Almighty, and He will not long
suffer you to walk upon the good earth that is His noblest creation!
Today you are clothed in silk and finery, but you will be reduced to ash,
consumed in the lake of fire that burneth eternal ...”
Cowdray had not hastened his pace, simply continued to stroll
with perfect equanimity, even pausing once to admire the velvety
darkness of the night sky. When finally he came to his house on Pearl
Street—an even finer house than the governor’s—he had turned his
head and looked at Anson.
He will choke on the hatred he spews. Cowdray spoke without
speaking, his words ringing inside of Anson’s head. Then the decision will be yours, Mooncalf. A son does not have to take up his
father’s battles.
Then he closed the door behind himself.
Anson had pleaded with his father to come away. But Determination
would not. He had planted himself in the street, screaming up at
Cowdray’s dark windows, until officers of the watch came and arrested them for disturbing the peace.
Before the year was out, Determination Kendall was dead.
He died suddenly in his fifty-eighth year, in a month where the full
moon fell on the thirteenth day. He began vomiting toads and slugs
and other black sickening vermin from his lips, and soon they were
gushing forth in such volume that he choked on them, his eyes wide
14
with terror. He died clutching the red cross around his neck, and it did
him no good.
Anson was not a vengeful man. But he had loved his father as best
as he could, and it was brutally unfair that he should be murdered
thus—so casually, so remotely, seemingly with as little effort as was
required to snuff the life of a fly. If nothing else, Determination had
been a faithful and diligent servant of God—far more perfect than
his son ever had been or could be. He had devoted his life to enacting
God’s will in every word he uttered and deed he performed. And it
had earned him not even the meagerest scrap of regard. Instead, God
had suffered Cowdray, the worst of sinners, to fill Determination’s last
moments with terror, suffering, and misery.
It was unconscionable.
Anson remembered Cowdray’s last words to him.
A son does not have to take up his father’s battles.
They were not words of advice. They were words of challenge.
Cowdray thought him weak-willed and hesitant, just as his father always had.
Anson saw that there was only one way he could truly honor his
father’s memory. And that was to prove him wrong.
Anson went to work with a vengeance he never knew he possessed.
He saw that it was useless to attack Cowdray within the fortress of
safety he had created for himself. Cowdray had powerful allies, so he
must have powerful allies as well.
Governor Simon Bradstreet was newly-returned to Massachusetts
after the collapse of the Dominion, and it was to him that Anson proposed an allegiance of interests. He knew that Bradstreet would care
little about Cowdray’s sins—but the warlock’s vast fortune ... well, that
was another matter. The governor was in desperate need of funds to
fight the French’s unceasing harassment of the colony’s frontier outposts to the north. Cowdray had no wife or kin. When he died, the
disposition of his estate would be uncertain. If it could be so arranged
Prologue
15
that he be arrested in Massachusetts, and there tried and convicted
and executed, his estate would escheat to the colonial government.
Bradstreet’s face had lit with interest when Anson described the
scheme. But just as quickly, he had frowned. “Ah, but you will ne’er
draw him to Massachusetts,” the governor muttered bad-temperedly,
as if hope itself were an annoyance.
But Anson was powerfully resolved to prove him wrong. He went
after Cowdray’s business agents, members of his coven—anyone with
even a remote association with the warlock who had the misfortune to
stray into areas controlled by those sympathetic to the growing fame
of the (now solitary) Inquisitor Kendall.
He had a hundred in gaol within a month, and all of them under
torture. Those who knew the most about Cowdray’s affairs died the
most quickly, just as Old Mother Grax had, gushing blood from their
noses and eyes. Anson gathered knowledge in drabs and snatches. He
learned how Cowdray would steal souls by means of a black snake
that would slither up to kiss the lips of a sleeping man. The sleeping
man would rise in the morning, but he would never again wake.
Anson was heedful of the threat Cowdray posed. He sent his wife
and daughter far away from Boston and told no one—not even Sarah’s
family—where they had gone. He kept his son James with him. The
boy was ten, a good age to be apprenticed. The work was endless, and
Anson needed hands he could trust. James had a clever mind. He did
not blanch at torture. It was what his father said must be done, and he
did it—not with the kind of pleasure Anson suspected Determination
had taken in it, but because he loved his father and wanted to please
him. This made Anson proud. His son was stronger than he had ever
been.
The most useful piece of information they collected was about a
shipment Cowdray was expecting. The warlock had made arrangements to take a bride. Little was known of her, except that she came
from a good family in England, and she was very wealthy, and Cowdray
had sent his fastest ship to bring her—and the large dower sum that
accompanied her—to New York.
16
When Anson learned of this, he rejoiced. For here, finally, was a
way to get Cowdray to Massachusetts.
He knew of a woman who, by all reports, was the best weatherwitch in the New World. He promised her that she would not be
tried if she would stir him up a sorcerous wind that would compel
Cowdray’s galleon off its course, and into one of the harbors in
Massachusetts, Boston or Salem, or anywhere in between. She was
reluctant, for no witch or warlock desired to cross Cowdray—but the
Inquisitor Kendall’s reputation had become near as fearsome, and she
was eventually persuaded. And Anson did keep his promise. He did
not prosecute her. He did nothing until he felt the winds shift, heard
the sailors of the harbor begin to talk of other ships, previously bound
for New York, mysteriously diverted to the waters of Massachusetts
Bay. He waited long enough to be certain that she had kept her end
of the bargain, and then he killed her, cutting her throat silently in the
night with his own hand.
He was his father’s son. He knew the ways of witches, knew their
occult methods of communication, knew that he could not take the
chance that the woman would betray his plans to Cowdray.
Anson Kendall had always had blood on his hands, so much blood
that it dripped from his fingers. Once, he had longed to wash it away.
Now though, he cared not. What was a little more blood? What was
it, really?
How Cowdray had found Sarah, and had delivered to her a comb
of ivory and gold (with a note that said it was a gift from her most loving husband) Anson never knew, even to his dying day.
Anson did not receive word of what happened to Sarah until more
than a week after Cowdray’s fastest ship had been blown into Boston
harbor, and Cowdray and his whore had travelled North under the
cover of sorcerous guises to reclaim the treasured cargo. Cowdray’s
affianced, a petulant and spoiled girl, repined in the governor’s home
even as Anson and his son had lain in wait, with twice two-dozen of
Governor Bradstreet’s best men.
Prologue
17
It had taken all of those men to capture Cowdray, and the warlock—summoning ferocious spirits from within the snuff box—had
left most of them dead. It was only young James’ bravery—for he
had knocked the snuff box from Cowdray’s grasp—that allowed the
remaining few to finally clap the warlock in irons.
It was a great victory, but short-lived. The next day, Anson received a letter from his daughter Abigail, who had sent it upon the
fastest post.
Abigail wrote of how pleased her mother had been with the unexpected gift from her husband. But upon combing her hair with the
jewel of ivory and silver, beautiful as the moon, Sarah Kendall had
fallen into a trance. Abigail’s letters became shaky on the page as she
recounted how the comb had become a black snake, slithering up
Sarah Kendall’s nose.
His wife was not dead. But neither was she alive. She breathed, but
there was nothing in her eyes.
All the arts of the local priest, the local doctor, even the local herbwoman had been employed to save her. But from each, the judgment
had been the same; her soul was gone from her body.
His wife, pure and kind and laughing, who had never done a cruel
thing in her life, had been consigned to an eternity of torture in a
magically-created hell with only the spirits of black heathens for company. The thought of it nearly drove Anson mad.
Or perhaps it had driven him mad, he thought, as he looked at the
blood dripping from Cowdray’s fingers, as he looked into the man’s
agonized face. Only a madman could take such pleasure in pain, so
much joy in revenge.
Anson Kendall sat in the ladderback chair, watching the warlock
die. The moon had risen higher now, casting a pallid glow over the gallows field. He pulled Cowdray’s snuff box from within his coat. The
masterwork of the warlock’s evil was horribly beautiful—worked in
chased silver, the scene on the lid depicted a vision of the devil dancing
18
in hell, ringed by souls writhing in torment. The face of the devil had
been worked to resemble Cowdray’s own.
Anson opened the box. It was lined with uchawi wood, polished
glove-smooth. He ran his fingertips along the inside, and they came
away coated with a dark, powdery residue that tingled. He rubbed his
fingers together. The box was open, but Sarah’s soul was locked within
it, within a world of suffering, and there was nothing he could do to
save her.
Anson clicked the box shut. He tucked it back inside his coat and
stood. He turned away from Cowdray. James didn’t notice his father’s
rise; he was warming himself before the fire. In the light of the nowrisen full moon, and the flickering gleam of the flames, his young face
looked very old and very sad.
In that moment, Anson felt very keenly the pain of failing everyone he had ever loved.
Then, there was a cry—high-pitched, desperate—and a dark blur,
a flash of red and bright silver, and Anson felt something slam against
him from behind.
It was a body, a young lithe body; Cowdray’s whore. He smelled
her reeking carnal stench, the salt of her tears. Her body was warm
against his. He felt something else then; sharp pain. He saw his son
turn at the sound of the harlot’s cry, watched as astonishment and
horror spread across James’ young face.
She had stabbed him, Anson realized suddenly, as his knees
buckled.
And he saw her hand, covered with his own blood, coming up to do
it again. With the strength of reflex, he seized her wrist, pain screaming
through his side as he wrenched the silver knife from her grasp. She
squeaked like a stepped-on kitten as he jerked her arm up behind her,
laid the knife against her throat.
James was at his father’s side immediately, Bradstreet’s men at his
heels. But Anson forestalled them all with a small shake of his head.
Instead, he jerked the whore around to where Cowdray was taking his
last breaths on God’s earth.
Prologue
19
“You’ve taken everything from me.” His side throbbed with pain.
Hot blood trickled down his leg. “Here is one thing ... one miserable,
wretched thing that I can take from you.”
“I care not ...” Cowdray’s voice was barely audible. But even through
his agony, through the pallor of swiftly approaching death, Anson saw
tenderness in the warlock’s eyes. He pressed the knife harder against her
throat, drawing blood. The girl’s hand came up to clutch his; their blood
mingled, sticky as raw honey.
Anson was certain that he would slit her throat. He wanted very
much to slit her throat. He wanted to cause this demon pain, do the
work that even God had scrupled to do.
But then, in the soft moonlight, he saw his son’s face.
It was held, as it always was, carefully and blankly. But something—
something divine or demonic—allowed Anson to see the horror there,
for the first time. His son had always wished to please him, and so he
had hid his disgust well. But it was there, just as strong as he himself had
ever felt it. Killing the witch would do no good. It would not rectify the
unfairness God had ordained for the world. It would not please Him.
Nothing would.
He shoved the girl away. She stumbled forward, falling to her knees
at Cowdray’s side. She seized the warlock’s bloody hand, held it tight.
And then Anson realized what a horrible mistake he had made.
Cowdray could lift his hand just barely, just enough to touch the
blood at the girl’s throat. His swollen purple fingers encircled her neck.
He did not have the strength to hold her, but she did not resist—instead,
she leaned into his grasp. There was magic dancing around Cowdray’s
fingers, magic drawn from the blood of the girl, and from Anson’s own
blood, mixed with hers. As the warlock began to speak, Anson felt magic
beginning to burn within him—blood calling to blood. His body felt
hot, as if he had coals in the pit of his stomach ...
There was an unearthly scream from the warlock. But the sound was
coming from between the girl’s lips, and then it became words. Chanting,
high-pitched and wild, in a bitter old language. Power, brighter than the
20
full moon, brighter than the sun at summer’s zenith, wreathed the pair
of them.
Anson fell to his knees, agony burning through his veins.
“More stones!” he screamed, to Bradstreet’s men. “All of them!
Now! For the love of Christ!”
But Cowdray’s voice continued to stream from the whore’s lips, even
as one, two, three more stones were heaped upon him.
“I curse you, Anson Kendall,” the girl mouthed, her eyes black and
pupilless. “I curse your children, and your children’s children, and your
children’s children’s children. Every full moon, from this time, until the
end of days on earth, I will take the body of one of your descendents
and I will use it to do all the evil—all and more—that you think you
have thwarted. I will be the everlasting curse of your lineage. I curse
you. I curse you!”
Cowdray voiced the final word in high church Latin—maledictus—
and Anson felt the force of it like a bolt from a crossbow. It slammed into
him. He shrieked.
And then he realized that James was screaming too, clawing at his
own flesh.
James. His child. His son.
Anson staggered to his feet, ignoring the agony that was melting
his bones, ignoring the force of magic that was lashing him with molten fury. Bradstreet’s men were cowering in terror; from one of them,
Anson seized a short sword.
“I curse you,” Cowdray rasped, in his own voice, as Anson seized
him by his blood-soaked hair.
It took several strokes to hack off the warlock’s head. But as the
last ragged sinew was severed, the maelstrom of magic calmed. Blood
gouted from the warlock’s ruined neck; the girl who had been his voice,
who had channeled his magic through her own body, collapsed—dead.
The sudden stillness seemed even louder than the deafening thunder
that had preceded it. Anson looked to where James lay on the ground—
the boy was unconscious, but he was breathing. His son was alive.
Anson Kendall lifted the severed head in his trembling hand, intending to cast it away into the darkest well of shadow he could find. Only
then did he see that the warlock’s eyes were still open, glittering with
moonlight and malice. And his lips were curved into a satisfied, mocking
smile.
Maledictus, the dead warlock whispered.
Part I: Waxing
Chapter One
A Battle of Wills
Sacramento Valley, California
29 days until the full moon
W
ill Edwards lay on his belly in a stand of dry grass, peering through
field glasses at the old farmhouse nestled in the bowl-shaped valley.
His bicycle lay on the ground, the click of a still-spinning rear wheel
drowned by the susurration of cicadas. The day had been Indiansummer hot, but the sky was deepening purple and soon the shadows
of late November would pool like chilled ink in the valley’s hollows.
Soon it would be time to fire up the electric generator, to power the
lights that would make the farmhouse seem the only warm place for
miles beneath a cold, waning moon.
Tonight, though, the lights would stay dark. Because Will was the
only one in the family who knew how to coax the stinking old kerosene
power-plant into operation. And he’d be damned if he ever lifted a
finger to help any of them ever again.
In fact, there was only one reason Will had staked out this observation spot at the top of the hill. It was Thanksgiving, and it was
rumored that Ben might be coming home.
Will had never really seen his brother Ben .... not that he could
remember, anyway. Ben had left home before Will could even walk
on two legs, and he’d never come home since, not even once. All Will
knew of his brother was based on incomplete snippets of information
overheard from his parents or bartered for from his older brothers.
Ben had had a fight with Father. It had been a fight so bitter that he’d
24
been sent away, far away, across the country to New York City. There,
he’d built a whole separate life for himself. He had studied at the famous Stanton Institute as a student. After graduation, the Institute
had retained him as an employee.
These unornamented facts did not suggest much common ground
between Will and his older brother—save for one still-smoldering
patch. They both thought that their father was an insufferable bastard.
For Will had had a fight of his own with Father, on his eighteenth
birthday, and it too was bitter enough to make him leave home (well,
for three days at least—and not to New York, but rather to his buddy
Pask de la Guerra’s neighboring spread a few miles over.)
On the surface, it was a fight about birthday presents. Which,
when considered in such a way, sounded awful petty even to Will’s
mind. But of course it was about so much more.
He’d had no cause to complain about quantity, for Father had
given him no fewer than three presents. It was the quality of these gifts
that he objected to, for each one had turned out to be worse than the
last. The first was mingy, the second superfluous, and the third ... well,
the third one was downright intolerable.
The mingy present was a silver dollar, almost fifty years old, a sentimental piece Father had kept on his watch chain for years. It was a
nice piece of money—if one wanted to buy a steak dinner. But it was
not enough for anything else. Certainly not enough for a train ticket
to Detroit. Not enough to get free of this place. And Father knew it.
It was nothing more than a pointed—and cruel—reminder of Will’s
powerlessness. It was as if Father had presented him with a ball and
chain and expected him to be pleased that the shackle was lined with
velvet.
Next came the superfluous present. Advice. What eighteen year
old boy needed more of that? And not only advice, but advice that
came wrapped in a Latin test to boot. Laying a hand on Will’s shoulder, the old man had asked, “Will, can you tell me the meaning of the
phrase Veritas vos Liberabit?”
A Battle of Wills
25
“The truth shall make one free,” Will offered the translation with
slight hesitancy, trying to remember if vos was singular or plural, certain Father was trying to trip him up with the pronoun.
But Father didn’t seem to care about the pronoun, he had just
nodded gravely, then released a heavy sigh. “It’s a very simple motto,
and it sounds very good. But I’m afraid it does not accurately capture
the cost of truth or freedom.”
What the hell did that mean? It sounded like Father was rehearsing
another political speech for Argus—probably trying to figure out how
he could work in something about the blood of martyrs. Will must
have made a noise of exasperation, because Father had dropped his
hand, and Will was left hoping beyond hope that he was saving the
best for last. Maybe he’d changed his mind about the letter Will had
received from Tesla Industries. Maybe ...
But as it turned out, the last present had been the worst—the absolute worst—and Will still got so mad when he thought about it that
he didn’t think about it. And so he had run away to the de la Guerras’
and lost himself in work on Pask’s auto.
Mechanical tinkering always set Will’s spirits at ease, and Pask’s
1906 Baker Electric was always in need of some kind of repair. Pask—
the grandson of Don Diego de la Guerra, an eminent Californio—had
been wildly enthusiastic about the machine when he’d gotten it three
years ago, but had since grown as tired of it as any toy. The more Pask
neglected the Baker, the more it acted up—and the more it acted up,
the worse Pask treated it, driving it with the unconscious negligence he
might use toward one of his father’s field hands.
The culmination of Pask’s mistreatment of the Baker was slapping
red and green paint on it for Homecoming, then—after he and Will
had one too many nips of whiskey at the game—driving it into an
irrigation ditch. Pask had sworn he would leave the half-submerged
heap there to rot, but Will had convinced him to have a team haul it
back to the de la Guerra’s barn, where Will had spent the better part
of a month disassembling and cleaning the electrical motor.
26
Will lowered the field glasses, catching a glimpse of his own hands
as he did. He’d scrubbed them with pumice soap, but they were still
seamed with grease from his most recent work on the Baker. At least
the time he’d spent hiding out at the de la Guerra’s had been well
spent. It had given him the opportunity to execute the coupe de grace of
his rebuild—retrofitting the jalopy with a nifty little power system of
his own design.
He called it an Otherwhere Flume. He’d come up with the concept during his last year at the California Polytechnic. While it was, in
the main, a standard Otherwhere Conductor (its design taken straight
from his teacher Mr. Waters’ third year “Otherwhere Engineering”
textbook) Will had introduced several significant improvements. Mr.
Waters had been astonished by Will’s ingenuity, but Will had never
quite understood his teacher’s astonishment. The inefficiencies of the
standard design were all so obvious. They stood out as prominently as
wrinkles in a tablecloth. All Will had done was smooth out the cloth.
With the Flume installed, Will could conceivably drive the beat-up
old Baker all the way to Detroit. It wouldn’t be comfortable or fast ...
but he could do it. And Will was in such a desperate state of mind that
he was actually considering it. It had been almost a month since he’d
gotten the fat letter from Tesla Industries, informing him that he’d
been accepted into their apprenticeship program. A whole month,
and the acceptance letter had said that they wanted him to get there
as quickly as possible.
Tesla Industries was the foremost center for scientific research
in the United States, and their apprenticeship program was worldrenowned. They only accepted one or two candidates a year—usually
college men—but Mr. Waters had been so impressed with Will’s work
that he had recommended Will for consideration.
And Will had been accepted.
The fat letter had arrived on Hallowe’en. The acceptance letter
itself wasn’t fat; but the boilerplate apprenticeship contract enclosed
with it was a hundred and thirty-two pages. Will had been giddy with
excitement. His father, however, had hemmed and hawed. He told
A Battle of Wills
27
Will that he would have to review the contract before he could give
Will his permission.
And of course, I let him, Will thought bitterly. Trusted him, like an
idiot. And wasn’t that just like Father! To pretend he was doing you
a favor ... looking out for your best interests ... when really he was
just stalling for time, looking for ammunition to fortify his position, so
he could ultimately deliver the devastating answer from a position of
unimpeachable strength:
No, Will. I’m afraid I don’t think it is a good idea for you to enter this program.
There are many more suitable opportunities closer to home. I’m afraid I cannot give
you my permission.
“Bastard,” Will muttered. Just remembering the old man sitting
behind his heavy desk, delivering that shattering pronouncement so
smoothly and casually, made him want to punch something.
A cooling evening breeze blew up the hillside, and along with the
smell of dry grass and aging lupines, Will caught the buttery, sugary
odor of baked squash. His stomach rumbled traitorously, and his mind
joined in the rebellion, suggesting that there would also be roast turkey
and mashed potatoes and pies. Ma’am made such good pies. Gosh, he
was hungry. He sure wished Ben would hurry up.
Will caught sight of a flashing glimmer, like a trout leaping from a
still pond. He quickly lifted his field glasses back to his eyes.
An automobile emerged from the dark cluster of oaks that hid the
road leading to the Edwards’ homestead. But not just any automobile.
Will recognized it instantly as a Pierce Arrow—a 66-QQ. It was the
biggest one they made, the six-passenger touring style. The gleaming chrome trim against the elegant french gray enamel, the brightpolished dark wood of the spoke wheels, the smooth blackness of the
Panasote top ... what a honey of a machine! And if all that weren’t
enough, it was next year’s model, a 1911. It would have to have been
special ordered—and it must have cost a mint.
The car came to a luxuriant surcease before the house’s front
porch. The driver was first out of the car on the right hand side. A
tall, heavily-built man, he wore green-tinted brass goggles and a long
28
motoring overcoat that brushed the tops of his mirror-polished black
boots.
Well, well. If it isn’t the Congressman, Will watched as his brother
Argus peeled off his dogskin driving gloves. Celebrating his victory with a
big new car, and so proud of it that he won’t even stand for a driver.
The really hilarious thing was that Argus had run his recent campaign as “California’s Man of the People,” with the press always running pictures of him shaking hands earnestly with laboring types in
grimy overalls. The voters of California had swallowed that bunch
of guff hook, line, and sinker, electing him to the U.S. House of
Representatives just the past September. Will found himself wishing
he had a camera right now. He’d send those papers some pictures!
California’s Big Goddamn Show-Off would be the headline.
And I just bet he’s going to insist on being called “the honorable,” Will
thought. Pft! As if !
He watched as Argus came around to open the door for the welldressed woman in the front passenger seat; Lillie, his wife. Lillie’s hat
emerged from the car first, her face swathed in taupe gauze to protect
her from the environmental hazards of motoring. She was also positively smothered in furs. Though the day had grown hot, they would
have had to have left San Francisco in the chill of dawn to motor the
entire eighty miles to the middle of the Sacramento Valley.
Argus left the passengers in the back seats to shift for themselves
while he saw his wife to the porch. Argus had married into an obscene
amount of money, and while he suffered no lack of success in his own
professional and political ventures, he was always mindful to keep that
particular slice of toast butter-side up.
How lovely it must be to be the honorable Argus Edwards!
Everything in life handed to him on a silver plate. Well, there was one
thing he wasn’t going to get ... his baby brother, the gearhead squirt,
sure as hell wasn’t going to show up fawning over his new car, no matter how amazing it clearly was. No sir!
Fuming, Will watched the passengers emerging from the back
seats. First out was another of Will’s brothers, Laddie. Unlike Argus
A Battle of Wills
29
and Lillie, he was not kitted out in motoring togs, but wore his customary well-tailored suit. Upon getting out of the car, he was quick to
open his gold cigarette case and light a smoke. He did this with the air
of elegant desperation that he did most things.
Next, a very large older man unfolded himself from what must
have been a very cramped middle seat. He quickly vanished beneath
the shady overhang of the broad porch, where Will’s mother had come
out to greet the new arrivals, wiping her hands on her apron before
extending them in welcome.
Will’s heart sank as he watched the final passenger emerge from
the automobile, for it was clearly not Ben. But disappointment gave
way to curiosity as Will noted the many extremely fascinating ways in
which the passenger differed. This “not-Ben” was a girl, about his age,
with long wavy brown hair held back in a red satin schoolgirl’s bow.
When she removed her light canvas motoring duster, he saw that she
wore a neat embroidered shirtwaist and a navy skirt trimmed in white
cord.
Everyone else had gone into the house, leaving her alone in the
quiet, lowering twilight. Breathing deeply, she stretched. It was a languorous, cat-like movement that made Will’s heart thump. Gosh. She
was even prettier than the car. Was she one of Lillie’s society friends,
maybe? Or what if she was here with Laddie, one of his empty-headed conquests? Oh, that would be just terrible, if Laddie had taken to
preying on innocent schoolgirls now. Will was simply dying to find out.
But ... no! Will dropped his field binoculars and sat back in the
grass. Ben hadn’t come, and that was that. He’d promised himself he
wouldn’t give any of them the time of day, and he wouldn’t. Wasn’t
like he was missing anything except a tedious evening with brothers
he already knew ... his witchly Ma’am chanting her fussy little kitchen
spells to make sure all the food stayed hot ... his Uncle Royce, who had
the most disquieting way of appearing suddenly at one’s elbow when
one least expected it ... and Father ...
He stood up and righted his bicycle. He slung his heavy leather
tool satchel (he never went anywhere without it) across his back. Pask’s
30
doors were always open to him, and the de la Guerras would surely be
fixing up a good dinner too. In honor of the holiday they’d probably
even crack open a bottle of old Spanish wine. They’d get up a game
of pinochle and listen to their brand new Teslaphone—they were the
first in the whole county to have bought one.
But then again ...
Will stood astride his bicycle, looking back down the hill. The girl
had gone inside. He wondered what her name was.
It wouldn’t hurt to find out.
Yes, that was it. He wanted to meet the girl. That was a fair reason
for a red-blooded American boy. He wasn’t going home to fawn over
Argus’ car, that much he promised himself. It wasn’t because he could
smell the pies all the way up here. And it certainly wasn’t because there
was still a small piece of his mind that he hadn’t yet given his father.
No. It was to meet the girl.
Kicking off, he coasted down the grassy hill toward home.
Will left his tool satchel on the screened back porch and crept in
through the mud room just off the kitchen. He was hoping to avoid
notice, and with the kitchen in such a state, that wasn’t hard. Pots
bubbled and steamed, china and silverware clanked. Potatoes were being mashed, vegetables creamed, gravy stirred. It was like the engine
room of a battleship about to engage a hostile fleet. A dozen itinerant
girls—charity cases from all up and down the West Coast that his softhearted Ma’am took in and employed—worked under her watchful
eye. There were so many of them, and in such constant rotation, that
it was flat-impossible to keep their names straight. Will had adopted
the tactic of calling them all “Maisy” and accepting whatever goodnatured or sharp-tongued correction might ensue.
The final turkey had just come out of the oven (there were three
birds in all, each twenty pounds if it was an ounce, each shot by Nate
in the thick oak groves along the Sacramento River) and preparations were being made for the food’s distribution to various destinations. One turkey would go to the German family who ran the farm,
A Battle of Wills
31
one would go to the charity girls, and the last—the largest—would
be served to the family. The birds that had been roasted earlier were
covered with large chargers laid over with folded wool blankets that
shimmered slightly; his Ma’am’s sorcerous handiwork would keep the
birds at the perfect temperature indefinitely.
Surreptitiously lifting one of the covers, Will picked off a piece of
turkey meat. Then, licking his fingers, he snuck up behind his mother—who had not yet noticed his arrival—and laid an indifferent peck
on her cheek.
“Hi,” he grunted.
“Will!” Ma’am whirled and seized him. She showered him with
kisses as if she hadn’t seen him in months. “I’m so glad you came back.
Were you over at Pask’s? I was worried about you!”
“Aw, what are you worrying about me for?” He didn’t like to worry
his Ma’am. And even though he was still a little mad at her for her
implicit support of Father’s birthday presents, her rosy round cheeks
and the good-humored glint in her violet eyes made it hard to stay so.
Even though her skin was wrinkled and her hair was losing the battle
to remain chestnut-colored, she always seemed younger than the girls
who surrounded her.
“You and your father had an awful bust-up,” Ma’am said. She
laid a soft, warm hand on his cheek—the one she called her “reading”
hand. It possessed some kind of special magical sensitivity that Will
had never really understood the extent of. She held it there for a moment until he felt compelled to shy away like an impatient colt. “But I
figured you’d both do with some cooling off. If I’d really wanted you I
would have Sent for you.”
Will shuddered inwardly but said nothing. All the Edwards boys
hated being Sent for by their witchly mother. It wasn’t that it was painful (unless she was really mad)—it was just ... well, what fellow wanted
his mother poking her nose into his head? Especially when you were
eighteen?
And on the subject of thoughts he probably would have preferred his mother not intrude on, Will tried not to look at one girl in
32
particular—the brunette girl who had arrived in Argus’ car and was
now helping out in the kitchen. She had been given a large white apron
to put over her stylish costume and had been set to rolling biscuits.
“Some motorcar the Congressman has got,” Will offered with
casual malice. Ma’am smirked at the jibe, and then, just as abruptly,
frowned.
“And do you know that they’ve left Kendall at home with the
nurse, just so Argus could drive that silly motorcar?” She tossed her
silver-threaded curls with outrage. “They didn’t think he’d stand the
trip. I’ve only got one grandchild, and I never even get to see him!”
Will said nothing. Ma’am loved babies, and being deprived of one
was an everlasting misery—but the absence of his infant nephew (who
Will remembered as red-faced and screaming at the indignity of being
swaddled in an extravagant confection of linen and lace) was, to him,
a matter of supreme indifference. He was more interested in another
absence.
“So Ben isn’t going to make it?”
Ma’am shook her head. “I guess something came up.” She quickly
seized a nearby bowl as if its contents were in urgent need of stirring. Ma’am was never any good at hiding anything—especially hurt.
When she was happy, her face looked young; but when she was sad,
she looked very old. Desperate to cheer her, Will wrapped his arms
around her and hugged her off balance, roaring like a bear. Ma’am
whooped and tried not to spill the contents of the bowl.
“But I have a letter from him!” she added brightly, as if that made
up for everything. Which it didn’t, but Ben was great at writing letters;
breezy, fascinating and suggestive. Ben wrote very interestingly about
things that weren’t very interesting. His letters were like cotton-candy;
thrilling and sweet, and you could eat a whole lot, but when you got
right down to it there really wasn’t much there. And if you ate too
much, you’d probably get sick.
Of course, Will had been able to form his opinions only from the
bits and pieces of Ben’s letters that other family members shared with
A Battle of Wills
33
him, because Ben had never written him. Not a single solitary word.
Ever.
Will, on the other hand, wrote to Ben quite often, in care of the
famous Stanton Institute in New York City, where Ben had been employed for many years. He wrote him about his life, his disappointments, his hopes. He came to think of his letters to Ben almost like a
kind of diary. You wrote in it, you shared secrets with it, but you never
expected it to give anything in return. But still, Will had asked Ma’am
about it once, asked why she reckoned Ben never wrote him back.
“He’s probably just thinking of what to say,” she’d said. “Someday
you’ll hear from him.”
Will doubted it. And Ben’s failure to show up at Thanksgiving
seemed only to confirm that suspicion. Even so, writing to Ben had
become an ingrained habit, and Will was already thinking of what
he would write about the girl who was rolling biscuits. Ma’am smiled
slyly when she saw how scrupulously Will was avoiding looking at their
guest.
“Don’t you two remember each other?” she asked, adopting a very
proper tone. “I guess it has been a long time. William Edwards, this
is Miss Jenny Hansen. Miss Jenny Hansen, this is my youngest son,
William.”
Jenny Hansen smirked, dusting flour off her hands so she could
extend one in his direction. Suddenly, Will felt even more suckered
than he had by Argus’ car. At least Argus’ car wouldn’t laugh at him.
“Jenny Hansen?” he squeaked. Holy Moses. He should have lit out
for Pask’s! He wondered if there was still time to escape.
“Of course he doesn’t remember me, Mrs. Edwards,” Jenny said,
withdrawing her hand when Will failed to take it. “It’s all those rocks I
shied at his head when we were kids.”
“I remember you, Scuff.” He used the nickname he’d given her
years ago, a testament to her perpetually scraped knees. “It’s just I
remember you all scrawny and homely and knock-kneed, and now,
well ...” Will trailed off irritably. Damn it, he’d meant it as a dig and it
hadn’t come out right at all.
34
“Hasn’t she gotten pretty?” Ma’am put an arm around Jenny and
pressed a little kiss to the side of her forehead. “She and her dad came
down from San Francisco with Argus and Laddie.”
Will’s mouth went dry. So that was who’d been crammed in the
middle seat of Argus’ car—of course! Mr. Dagmar Hansen, one of
Ma’am’s oldest friends. How could he have failed to recognize him?
He was, after all, probably the largest man Will had ever seen in his
life.
It was one thing to see a cute girl and want to get her number;
it was quite another to discover that the cute girl was Jenny Hansen,
and that her enormous father was on the scene to keep a sharp eye on
her interests. Or a sharp eye on anyone else who had his eye on her
interests.
“Will, take these out to the table,” Ma’am said, shoving a bowl of
mixed nuts into his hands. “Then go say hello to Mr. Hansen. Jenny,
finish up those biscuits and then you can run along too, we’ve got
plenty of help ...”
Ma’am’s last words were lost as Will made his escape from the
kitchen. He sullenly deposited the bowl of nuts onto the groaning table,
then braced himself to be sacrificed upon the altar of the Edwards’
family gaiety. His entrance into the family room would be heralded
with baying cries of welcome; the joyous cries of predators having
sighted a small animal they can harry. Will’s brothers took harrying
Will very seriously. They had elevated it to an art form. A late baby,
Will was much younger than all of them—Laddie was the closest to
him in age, but even he was a whole decade older than Will—so they
all felt justified in taking a very stern fatherly tone toward him at the
drop of a hat. Having all suffered under their Father’s stern paternal
tone, they found it great fun to use on their baby brother. It was like
being trapped in a house with multiple Fathers, each of whom could
whip him.
The large family room was a ground floor suite just off the garden, originally designed for a resident mother-in-law. There were no
mothers-in-law in the Edwards family, but it was said the suite of
A Battle of Wills
35
rooms had been inhabited once, by a superannuated Grandpap—the
one Nate had been named for. But that old man died long before Will
was born, and of him Will knew only that he’d come from up the
mountains, and had brought a lot of cats with him, the descendents
of which still hunted mice under the grain-bins in the barn. After his
death, the suite’s sitting room had been set up with sofas and tables,
lamps and a piano (usually plied by one of Ma’am’s charity cases, as
none of the Edwards’ were at all musical)—all the comforts required
for a cozy family evening. Books were conspicuous in their absence,
but that was because all the books were kept in the next room, Father’s
study. The high walls of that sumptuous cave were lined with them,
floor to ceiling.
But the door to the study was closed, which meant that Father was
presiding within. In the family room, Laddie and Lillian were making
themselves comfortable. The only liquor in the Edwards’ house was
Father’s old scotch kept under lock and key, so Laddie had withdrawn
his own capacious silver flask and was mixing up impromptu cocktails
for himself and Lillie. It was whispered among Ma’am’s girls that Lillie
was “fast”—she drank and smoked and wore cosmetics (“and not just
powder either!” Will remembered one girl’s shocked assertion.) And
while Argus was her husband, rumor had it that Laddie was the only
one who could keep her in line. Will wondered how a fast, unmanageable wife was supposed to fit into Argus’ expansive political plans; but
on the other hand she was rich, and her family well-connected, so
maybe that outweighed everything else.
“Good afternoon, William!” Laddie drawled, tapping a cigarette
against the gold case. “Turned yourself in, have you?”
Laddie was unquestionably the handsomest of the Edward boys,
dark and slim and elegant. As usual, he was dressed exquisitely—not
in honor of the holiday, but because looking good seemed to be the
sole moral imperative he upheld.
“Hullo,” Will mumbled. “Where’s Argus?”
“He’s in with the men,” Laddie said archly, nodding toward the
library door. By “men,” of course, Laddie meant Father and Mr.
36
Hansen and Uncle Royce. It was clear Laddie did not include himself
in that description, nor Nate (whom Will had completely failed to notice brooding in the corner.) And certainly not Will.
Will wondered where Ben would stand in that equation. Ben would
likely stand outside the equation entirely. Not a man, not a boy ... Ben
was like a different species.
“We waited for Ben at Union Station,” Laddie said. He had the
most disquieting talent for knowing the drift of his brothers’ thoughts,
and voicing them when they otherwise would not have. “But he wasn’t
on the train. I suppose he decided against it at the last minute. I must
say, I was really hoping for a reconciliation, at least a temporary one.
Watching them fight it all out again would have been such fun.”
Will said nothing. Ben’s fight with Father was legendary within the
family for its rancorous protraction, and in comparison, Will’s own
fight with Father was merely a candle held up to the sun. Ma’am had
traveled to New York a few times, hoping to effect a reconciliation, but
even she had ultimately given up. Ben now existed within the family
only on paper, in the extended letters he wrote to everyone but Father
and Will.
“Of course, I hear you’re doing your best to step into Ben’s shoes
and give us all a wonderful show,” Laddie looked at Will over the rim
of his highball glass. “I hope you thought up some really good cutting
remarks while you were hiding out at Pask de la Guerra’s house. I’m
expecting nothing but the best.”
Will didn’t say anything. He knew that the best defense against his
brothers was surly silence.
“Speaking of Ben, I had a letter from him just the other day,”
Laddie said. “Full of the most scandalous gossip about people I’ve
never heard of. He managed to make it more fascinating than scandalous gossip about people I know intimately. I call that quite a skill.”
“Hi, Nate.” Will turned his attention to his brooding brother in
the corner. Nate’s arms were crossed and he was staring at the floor,
frowning deeply. Nate loved only one thing—horses. Everything else
he hated. He hated being inside, he hated wearing clothes that weren’t
A Battle of Wills
37
soiled with manure, and he especially hated being taken away from his
chores for something as ridiculous as a family gathering.
Nate did not answer, didn’t even look up. After a pause, Will said,
“Sorrel mare again?”
Nate nodded, keeping his dark steady gaze fixed on the carpet at
his feet. “One of the hands left the bar off the stable again. I swear to
God, if I find the man who did it, I’ll have his hide for a new pair of
mucking boots. She got down into the south pasture and ate a bellyful
of clover and now she’s got the slobbers.”
“I thought clover was good for them,” Lillie said, but her tone
indicated that she couldn’t be less interested if she tried.
“Most horses tolerate it fine,” Nate allowed. “But one bite and that
poor sorrel goes crazy. We have to put up hay for her special with no
clover in it.”
“My goodness, I wish Cook would take that kind of care with our
dinners!” Lillie smirked sidelong at Laddie. “I believe she goes out of
her way to miss the bones in the fish she serves us.”
If he was Argus and Lillie’s cook, Will mused, he’d probably put
extra bones in their fish in the hopes that they’d choke on one. But he
refrained from giving voice to this sentiment.
“And no matter how much care Nate takes with that sorrel mare,
she still gets into the clover every time,” Laddie said, as he handed the
cocktail to Lillie. “One might come to the conclusion that she hasn’t
the slightest idea what’s good for her.”
“Stupid beast,” Lillie said, giving the words strange emphasis. Will
had no idea what to make of it. Laddie, on the other hand, knew exactly, and he and Lillie punctuated whatever opaque joke they’d made
by clinking their glasses together. Will had never really understood
what kind of relationship existed between his two brothers and this
woman. Honestly, he was kind of glad he didn’t.
“She’s not stupid,” Nate flared, but not at anyone in particular.
Once he’d said it, he turned his eyes back to the carpet and sank deeper into his own thoughts, from which, Will knew, it would be nearly
impossible to pull him. Of all his brothers—the brothers he knew,
38
the brothers who were more to him than mere abstraction—Will felt
most akin to Nate. They both understood what it was to live with an
overwhelming, obsessive interest—Nate for horses, Will for mechanical devices. How those obsessions were received, however, could not
have been more different. Because while Nate’s passion was in neat
alignment with the family’s interests (or, more to the point, Father’s interests, as his renown as a breeder of the finest Morgans on the West
Coast was largely due to Nate’s zealous efforts) Father had been able
to find no similar value in Will.
“Have you seen Jenny?” Lillie pinned Will with her suggestive
green eyes. They were indeed, Will noticed, faintly rimmed with kohl.
She rattled the ice in her glass, which was Laddie’s cue to quickly take
it from her hand and begin mixing her another.
“Yes, I saw her,” Will said carefully. There was a trap in that question, and he wanted to be ready to jump out of the way.
“She was so excited to see you,” Lillie purred. “The little chatterbox was positively bursting with questions about you on the way out.”
“Questions about me?” Will frowned, determined not to reveal his
interest. If they suspected he cared, the information was sure to be
withheld.
“Oh yes,” Lillie said. “But honestly, Will, you mustn’t get your
hopes up. She really has to hold out for a partner in a brokerage, at
least.” She lowered her voice a conspiratorial shade. “Her father has
done all right by her, given that he’s just one corked boot out of the
mountains. He’s put her into Miss Murison’s, you know, and everyone
there seems to just love her. They find her so sprightly and queer and
interesting. And so full of opinions.” She dangled this last word in front
of Laddie with a tantalizing smirk; he rolled his eyes and released an
extravagant sigh.
At that moment the door to Father’s library opened, and the men
came rumbling out. First through the door were Argus and Uncle
Royce, engaged in brisk, close conversation about a political rally
scheduled to be held in San Francisco that Sunday—a rally Argus was
going to give a speech at, or sell peanuts at, or something. Mr. Hansen
A Battle of Wills
39
and Father followed behind. Mr. Hansen moved with the slow dignity of the rich, amiable, and well-fed, still smoking one of the cigars
that the “men” had clearly been enjoying in the library. Father limped
alongside him with his customary stiffness, his game leg (injured in a
long-ago riding accident and never properly healed) making a faint
scuffing sound on the carpet. Mr. Hansen and Father were of a height,
but where Father was stick-slim, Mr. Hansen loomed like one of the
enormous hundred-year trees his fortune had been built on, the old
giants that took fifteen men to saw down.
Father and Mr. Hansen saw Will at the same time. When Father
saw Will, his face changed. The look that passed over it, Will decided,
was disapproval. It was a subtle shift, but Will was always aware of it.
Mr. Hansen’s face, on the other hand, brightened in a broad smile.
“Why, look who’s here! Will!” Mr. Hansen clapped a heavy hand
on Will’s back, and Will had to struggle to keep his feet. Mr. Hansen
was a very old and dear friend of Ma’am’s—and just as Ma’am had
always wished for a daughter, Mr. Hansen had always wished for a son.
It was the one thing Will could say for himself, that of all the Edwards
litter, Mr. Hansen probably would have picked him for his own.
“How you been keeping?”
“Fine, Mr. Hansen,” Will said.
“You seen my girl Jenny? She came out with me special. That girl
has the biggest crush on you—”
“Dad!” Jenny screeched from across the room, having entered just
in time to hear these intolerable words proceed from her father’s lips.
Her face was beet red. “I said had a crush. Had. When I was ten years
old! For pity’s sake!”
Mr. Hansen stuck his tongue out at her, a bizarre expression for a
titan of commerce. With a smile, he gestured for Will to follow him
out to the verandah, where he could finish his cigar. The evening had
cooled, and mellow golden light hung over the back garden, Ma’am’s
pride. Late-season chrysanthemums nodded over the neat river-gravel
pathways, their scent mingling with the smell of cigar smoke. Mr.
Hansen breathed appreciatively. “Your mother,” he sighed.
40
Then, turning his attention back to Will: “So, congratulations are
in order. I hear you graduated at the top of your class!”
Will shrugged indifferently. He’d graduated from the California
Polytechnic High School in June, but his pride in the accomplishment had been overshadowed by the disappointment he’d suffered
since. When he’d come home at the beginning of the summer, after
three years living almost three hundred miles away from home in the
school’s dormitory in San Luis Obispo, he’d felt like an independent
man. Now he just felt like a bitter, thwarted boy.
“Still going on to study engineering?” Mr. Hansen rubbed a flake
of tobacco from his lip then spat into a flowerbed. Even though he
was now one of the richer men in San Francisco—a town that did not
want for rich men—he still retained the manners of his early years in
a rough-and-tumble logging-camp in the Sierras. “Lots of opportunity
in that line for a wide-awake young man.”
“I think there is,” Will said. He did not add the rest, even if some others around here don’t. His father might not think so, but Will was capable
of tact when he chose to exercise it. Mr. Hansen was a good, honest man and Will wanted his respect. He wished he could talk to Mr.
Hansen about the apprenticeship he’d been offered. If Mr. Hansen
was his father, Will betted he’d let him go to Detroit.
“Yes, it is a fine little machine ... it will be just the thing for weekend
outings when my duties allow me to return home from Washington.”
Argus’ voice boomed from inside the house. “Of course, I wouldn’t
dream of taking it out to Washington with me. Taft, you know, ordered
a pair of last year’s models for state cars—official automobile of the
White House—and it wouldn’t do for a freshman Congressman to
show up the president.” A pause, during which Will imagined Argus
taking a deep, ego-inflating breath. “It’s got a six stroke engine, so my
mechanic tells me. He also told me something quite astonishing about
its disbursement, but I can’t quite remember what it was he said. It’s
quite low, or quite high, whatever it’s supposed to be.”
“Dual valve six, sixty-six horsepower, 714 cubic-inches of displacement,” Will muttered to himself. He did not mutter low enough for his
A Battle of Wills
41
words to escape Mr. Hansen’s notice; the man chuckled and ground
the stub of his cigar under his heel. He bent his head toward Will’s and
spoke in a conspiratorial tone:
“Just between you and me, he had to have that same mechanic
start the car for him before we left San Francisco. I don’t know what he
thinks we’ll do when it’s time to go back. Ask for your help, I reckon.”
Will didn’t smile. “Well, why shouldn’t he? I am the Edwards’ family mechanic, after all.”
Mr. Hansen clapped him on the shoulder sympathetically.
Apparently he’d heard about the fight between Will and his father,
because he did not ask for details.
“Cheer up. Things may turn out differently than you expect. You’re
eighteen. You’ve got a lot of life ahead of you. You’ve got plenty of
time.”
“It doesn’t feel that way,” Will said.
“It never does,” Mr. Hansen grinned. “But you know what they
say. Haste makes waste.” He paused, sniffing the air. “And hunger
makes the best sauce. You’d think that mother of yours would have
dinner on the table by now! Let’s see what’s keeping the old girl.”
Indeed, dinner was about ready to be served, and everyone was
milling just outside the formal dining room, waiting to take their seats.
There were to be ten at the main table; the charity-case girls (under
the efficient organization of Ma’am’s current right-hand girl ... what
was her name, Maisy?) had taken their turkey and side dishes out to
the bunkhouse. The German family who oversaw most of the farm’s
operation had likewise retired to their own quarters, where they would
feed not only their own large clan of sons and daughters, but also
those ranch hands who hadn’t gone into Sacramento or Stockton for
a long weekend carouse. They would have a merry evening, and there
would be dancing later. Will half wished he was eating with them.
But he was eating in the big house, in the high-ceilinged formal
dining room, surrounded by fussy antiques. Father and Ma’am had
bought the house forty years ago, fully furnished in the overblown
42
fashion of those days, and they had never quite gotten around to redoing it. The formal dining room (used only for occasions like this) was
painted in a sepulchral shade of blood red, with garish gold trim and
swagged velvet curtains. The black walnut dining table, which had
been brought around the cape on a clipper ship, could easily seat thirty
(with all the leaves in) and weighed at least ten thousand pounds (so
Ma’am swore, whenever she tried to move the damn thing.)
Tonight it was laid with crisp ironed linens and the best crystal and
china. As a finishing touch, Ma’am had lit the room with magic, fashioning softly glowing spirit orbs that hovered over the table like soapbubbles, trembling gently with each breath of air. Will remembered
how she’d used to make these on summer nights when he was much
younger. How she would gather magic between her hands, shaping it
like bread dough, murmuring rhymes to intensify the glow.
Of course, the delight of seeing the room lit with spirit orbs was
diminished by Will’s realization that she’d probably made them because he hadn’t started up the generator—and no one had dared ask
him to. He rather wished someone had, just so he could have had the
pleasure of telling them no. But then again, the dining room did look
pretty in the soft golden light; it was much less harsh than the bare
electric bulbs.
Ma’am had outdone herself. The smell of food made Will’s mouth
water, and the beauty of the table took his breath away. He felt a
twinge of sadness, followed by a little flicker of anger. Why had Ben
let Ma’am get her hopes up, anyway? She wouldn’t have gone to such
lengths if she hadn’t thought he was coming home.
Will’s thoughts were interrupted by a soft plucking at his elbow. He
tensed; he knew that pluck. It was Uncle Royce. Damn him, couldn’t
he at least have the decency to wear heavier shoes?
Will turned in time to see his uncle’s back retreating in the direction of the grand entry alcove—an unspoken indication that Will
was to follow. Will always had wondered what would happen if he
simply did not follow Uncle Royce when the man summoned him
in such a perfunctory fashion. But he’d never actually attempted the
A Battle of Wills
43
experiment. Like Father, Uncle Royce maintained an air of command.
Both brothers expected to be obeyed unquestioningly, and as such, no
one ever questioned that they should follow. It was the only trait they
had in common; otherwise one would never guess they’d shared the
same parents.
Uncle Royce was a mantic consultant in San Francisco. He lived
in an old butter-yellow house on Nob Hill—a house, in fact, that was
more famous than he was. After the cataclysm of 1906, every home
on Nob Hill had burnt to the ground. All except one—Uncle Royce’s
butter-yellow house. It was the talk of the town in the months after;
a popular song had even been written about it. Will had always suspected Laddie’s hand in that. Laddie moved in circles that included
musical people, and Uncle Royce had been so amusingly vexed by
hearing the jaunty air spilling out of every Victrola from the Mission
to the Bay, that if Laddie had had a hand in it, it was a matchless coup.
All the brothers enjoyed vexing Uncle Royce. All of them, apparently,
except one.
“I’ve had a letter from your brother Ben,” Uncle Royce said, in a
low voice, once they were in the entryway. “He says you’re still upset
about Detroit.”
Will recalled the bitter, passionate letter he’d written to Ben after
his fight with Father. Of course he was still upset. But at the moment,
he was more astonished by the fact that his brother had mentioned
him—that he was a topic of discussion. Did Ben mention him to other
members of the family, too? Did he tell them what he wrote in his letters? The very idea sent a chill of embarrassment through him.
“He is worried about you,” Uncle Royce continued, when Will did
not speak. “He thinks you might do something foolish.”
“Foolish?” Will snorted. Like try and drive Pask’s jalopy two-thousand miles cross-country, as he’d imagined he might? But of course
he didn’t say this, because that did sound foolish. Instead, he drew
himself up and attempted to speak with manly dignity. “Uncle Royce,
all I want is to go to Detroit and take the apprenticeship that Tesla
44
Industries has offered me—and honestly, if I can figure out a way to
accomplish that, foolish or not, then Ben is right to be worried.”
Uncle Royce closed his eyes wearily. When he opened them,
though, his gaze was keener than before.
“William. Like it or not, your father is completely correct. Tesla
Industries is the wrong place for you right now.”
“Why?” Will pounced on the words before they were out of his uncle’s
mouth, for they were the very same words he’d heard from Father.
Uncle Royce paused, clearly formulating a careful response. When he
finally spoke, however, all he said was, “Do you recall a book I once gave
you for your birthday? The Adventures of Pinocchio?”
As if he could forget! Uncle Royce’s birthday presents were a grim
joke among the brothers. He always bought the most unwelcome gifts,
as though he studied the boy and purchased the things he was least likely
to enjoy. For Laddie it was always sporting equipment. For stay-at-home
Nate, theater tickets. For Will, who never could stand reading ... books.
And what books! Uncle Royce had a knack for finding the most queer and
disturbing children’s books in existence, of which, in Will’s opinion, The
Adventures of Pinocchio ranked near the top.
“Which part are you suggesting I recall?” Will lifted a cool eyebrow.
“The Fairy with the Turquoise Hair, or the Terrible Dogfish?”
“The Land of Toys,” Uncle Royce replied pointedly. “Where boys are
lured in by their own base impulses and transformed into asses.”
“Base impulses!” Will barked. “I’m not chasing a showgirl or going to
work for a whiskey manufacturer. I want to work. To learn.”
“Whether it’s a desire for whiskey or a desire for learning, when you
use it as an excuse to hurt everyone around you, then it’s a base impulse,”
Uncle Royce hissed.
“Will! Royce!” Ma’am’s voice shrilled from the dining room. “What
are you waiting for? Come in and sit down, we’re all ready to eat!”
“I haven’t hurt anyone,” Will returned furiously, hardly registering his
mother’s call. “I’m the one that’s been hurt. I’m the one whose future is
being ruined—”
A Battle of Wills
45
“Oh, for God’s sake, there really is no talking to you,” Uncle Royce interrupted, exasperated. He thrust a hand inside his coat pocket and pulled
out an envelope. Will’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he looked at it.
“I’ve been asked to give this to you,” Uncle Royce said. “It’s a letter.
From Ben.”
Will blinked astonishment. A letter from Ben? For him? He reached
out to snatch it, but before he could, Uncle Royce lifted it away.
“You’re on a dangerous course, young man,” he said. “Don’t say I
didn’t warn you.”
Seizing the letter, Will tucked it safely away.
“Will, you come sit by Jenny,” Ma’am said when he came in, as
if putting him next to Jenny would make up for the fact that he’d be
sitting next to Father as well. Neither Will nor his father so much as
looked at each other as they passed their plates around. When Will’s
was passed back to him, mounded with good food, he could only pick
at it. While everyone else ate cheerfully, their end of the table was suffocated in grim silence.
Between bites he could barely taste, Will snuck sullen looks at his
father, just waiting for the old man to broach a subject, any subject.
Having just spoken with Uncle Royce, he was once again struck by
how different the brothers were. Uncle Royce was compact, with dark
hair and dark eyes and a fair complexion that didn’t turn at sun or
wind. Perhaps father had once been pale like that; but even though he
had always left the hard labor of the horse farm to his hired men—
and later to Nate—he was as bronzed as if he spent every day in the
saddle. His hair might once have been dark, but now there was as
much silver in it as a Reno mine.
“Well, Jenny,” Father cleared his throat, which Will always understood to mean that he was preparing to say something tedious. “How
are you liking Miss Murison’s? I am told it is quite a good school, as
girls’ schools go.”
“I enjoy it very much, Mr. Edwards,” Jenny said, the picture of
politeness. Elbows off the table, back straight, eyes on Father like he
46
had asked her the most fascinating question in the world. Whatever
else could be said of Miss Murison’s, it had certainly had a civilizing
influence on the scuff-kneed girl Will had once been friends with.
“Are there any subjects of particular interest to you?”
“I am most interested in applied mathematics,” Jenny said.
“Quantitative analysis, statistics, that kind of thing. Lately I have been
studying the works of Louis Bachelier. Have you ever heard of him,
Mr. Edwards?”
Father’s brow knit thoughtfully. “I can’t say that I have.”
Jenny’s face fell ever so slightly. “Oh well, very few people have.”
Then, as if remembering some particular of training from Miss
Murison’s, she gave a pretty giggle and picked up her fork with an
elegant movement. “Quantitative analysis isn’t everyone’s cup of tea,
I suppose.”
Father did not comment, but cut a slice of turkey into a precise
shape and dabbed it into the gravy. After a long silence, Jenny attempted another conversational sally, this time towards Will.
“I was wondering, William,” she began, rather formally, “When I
was helping your mother in the kitchen, I happened to see a very large
wooden crate behind the house. What’s in it?”
Will glanced daggers at his father. It couldn’t have been a more perfect—and dangerous—question if she’d been coached to it. Because
the big wooden crate contained Will’s third birthday present.
“It is a new electric power plant,” Father answered. “The one we
currently have is underpowered and antiquated. This new one is large
enough to power the house and the barns and all of the outbuildings.
It is, by all accounts, an exceptionally fine piece of equipment. We
expected that Will would find it fascinating.”
Will pushed potatoes around on his plate. The fact that Father
was right—that the power plant was top of the line, and under other
circumstances he would have been thrilled at the prospect of setting it
up, rewiring all the old farm buildings, making the genie of electricity
dance beneath his fingertips—cut no ice.
A Battle of Wills
47
“Oh sure.” Will muttered. “Just what every boy wants for a birthday present.”
“But you’ve always been interested in machines,” Jenny ventured.
“I tell you what I’m not interested in,” Will said, feeling heat rise up
under his collar. “I’m not interested in getting stuck here in California
as the Edwards’ family mechanic.”
“That wasn’t the intention of the gift,” Father said mildly. The
conversation was drifting onto treacherous shoals. Will didn’t care. In
fact, he was glad of it.
“I know exactly what the intention of the gift was,” Will said. “It
was supposed to make me feel better about not going to Detroit. And
like I said before, there’s nothing that’s going to do that.”
“Detroit?” Jenny asked. “What’s in Detroit?”
“You know Tesla Industries, right?” Will said.
“Of course!” Jenny said. “Who doesn’t? All the kids in San
Francisco are just mad for their wireless musical cabinets. Teslaphones
beat Victrolas all cold, not having to buy discs.”
“Teslaphones are just toys compared to what Tesla Industries is
really doing,” Will snapped his fingers for emphasis. “Tesla Industries
is the leading center of Otherwhere research in the country—in the
whole world. They’ve got an apprenticeship program that only accepts
a tiny number of applicants every year. One of my teachers at the
Polytechnic put me up for it ... and they offered me a slot.”
“That’s wonderful!” Jenny gasped and clapped her hands together.
“Yeah, isn’t it?” Will shot an acid glare at his father. “At least, it
would be, if I could go. But it’s been decided that it’s not in my best
interests, you see. I’ve got a power plant to rig up, after all—”
“Really, Will, do we have to go over this again?” his father said
wearily. “Now? At the dinner table?”
“We can talk about it anywhere you like. All I want is one reason
for not letting me take the apprenticeship.”
“I have already given you several—”
“One good reason,” Will spoke over him.
48
Father lifted his hand wearily, raising a single finger. He looked at
Will long and hard. “Traveling two thousand miles away from home
and putting yourself under the complete control of a man like Nikola
Tesla is idiotic.”
“He won the Nobel Prize last year!”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t a genius,” Father said. “But even geniuses—
especially geniuses—can surround themselves with the wrong kinds of
people. His company’s policies regarding secrecy and privacy and
the abdication of rights on the part of his contracted employees are
completely outrageous. Did you even read the apprenticeship contract,
Will?”
Will was hot with indignation. “Of course I did!” he said, even
though he actually hadn’t, as that document had been a hundred and
thirty-two pages long and printed in very small type. But he had very
diligently skimmed it.
“Then perhaps you simply failed to notice that they do not allow
you to have any contact with your family? Indeed, with anyone outside
the program at all?”
“Surely they’re doing research that could make them millions of
dollars, Mr. Edwards,” Jenny said, wide-eyed. “Of course they must be
secretive. They have to protect their intellectual property, don’t they?”
“I suppose they do, Jenny,” Father said, apparently surprised at
suddenly finding himself in a two-to-one battle. Will was surprised
too, but grateful. “But I would be shocked if their apprentices were
made privy to work of such extraordinary value. Rather, I suspect
some form of indoctrination—”
“Indoctrination!” Will blazed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, William,” Father said, in a warning voice, “That corporations ... all organizations, as a matter of fact ... must compel the loyalty
of their workers. In the army, they call it basic training. Tesla Industries
probably draws future employees from their pool of apprentices. And
so they swear them to this ridiculous secrecy in order to make them
feel like part of the group.”
A Battle of Wills
49
“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Will said. “It sounds wonderful
to me! I would be happy to stay as an employee of Tesla Industries.”
“Of course you would!” Father said. “That’s the whole point, Will.
Organizations of this type do not give you a choice. You will be happy
to be an employee because they will make you happy. They will make
you part of a machine. Your ability to think for yourself will be reduced to what is good for the company.”
“Yes, unlike here, where my ability to think for myself is reduced
to what’s good for the family,” Will shot back.
Father sighed. “Will, I know how intelligent you are, and how talented. But as I have said, I do not believe Tesla Industries is a good
place for you. Not right now.”
“Mr. Waters can vouch for the program personally!” Once again,
Will attempted to invoke the name of Herman Bierce Waters, M.E.,
Vice-Director of the California Polytechnic, whose strong recommendation had gotten him the apprenticeship. “He would hardly do that
if it wasn’t completely trustworthy!”
“Mr. Waters’ assessment is immaterial,” Father said, icily. Then,
clearly searching for a way to pour oil on troubled waters, he said:
“How about a compromise. If you will wait until the spring, we will
discuss it again then.”
“They probably won’t even want me anymore by then! Besides,
what’s going to be different in the spring than now?”
“Lots of things. The foaling will be done, and—”
“The foaling?” Will was furious now, and everyone at the table was
riveted to the awkward scene. “If you’re going to make up excuses,
can’t you at least make one up that doesn’t insult the intelligence you
claim to believe I possess? Nate’s always taken care of the foaling, and
besides that, he’s got two dozen rancheros to help him—and even the
greenest one of them is more use than me! There are only two reasons
to wait for spring ... so that the offer will expire while you keep me
under your thumb wiring up your goddamn electrical plant!”
50
“There is only one reason I need to give you, young man!” Father
roared in return, all patience lost. He slammed the table with his fist.
“Because I’m your father and I say so!”
“Oh Wordsworth, please don’t yell,” Ma’am said. She always called
Father by his despised middle name when she was annoyed with him.
Frowning, Father returned his attention to his dinner plate, responding as he always did when he was annoyed, in a tone mild yet
palpably acerbic: “As you wish, my goddess.”
“And you, Will”—Ma’am glared down the table at him, a look
sufficient in intensity to make him curl back in his seat—“Your father
has made his decision. You’re needed here. We’ll discuss it again in the
spring. If they want you now, they’ll want you then. Honestly, a few
months isn’t going to make a bit of difference—”
“It makes a lot of difference to me!” Will said, standing abruptly
and throwing his napkin down with a melodramatic flourish. “But as
usual, what’s important to me is the last thing anyone in this family
concerns themselves with!”
“William, sit down.” This, from Uncle Royce. That was the last
straw.
“Ben has the right idea,” Will snarled. “About all of you. No wonder he didn’t come home.”
Will stormed off to the barn. He climbed the ladder to the hayloft,
then threw himself down on a pile of old feed sacks in a narrow, awkward corner—no good for storing hay—that a much younger Will had
appropriated as his own secret fortress.
Everything was just the same as he’d left it when he’d gone away
to school three years ago. There were still dozens of dogeared dime
novels (now thick with dust) shelved on a pair of milk crates stacked
atop each other. There were a lot of Vanguard Girl adventures. Also the
Rover Boys, Pluck & Luck, Diamond Dick, several numbers of the Tip Top
Weekly, a few Brushfork Banditos—and dozens of editions of the most
popular of the pulp series, the True Life Tales of Dreadnought Stanton.
A Battle of Wills
51
Oddly enough, of all the books on the shelves, only one was actually his. The Adventures of Pinocchio, the gift Uncle Royce had given him
on his eighth birthday. He’d hated it from the minute the woodcarver
Master Cherry hit the wood with the axe and the wood shrieked in
pain. But apparently Father had thought there was something important in Uncle Royce’s gift; enough that he felt compelled to read it to
Will. It was a trial for them both, and perhaps one of the only things
they’d ever agreed on—they both hated that book as much as Uncle
Royce seemed to find it admirable and instructive.
All the other books were Jenny’s, brought out to the farm with her
on the summers she’d come to stay. Like every other American kid
below the age of dull maturity, she had adored dime novels, detective magazines, adventure serials ... anything with a generous helping of adventure and danger. She had been particularly partial to the
Dreadnought Stantons, and there were at least four or five new ones
of those every year, each more lurid and hair-raising than the last.
Jenny found them especially interesting because they were about a
real-life person—the warlock Sophos of the Stanton Institute in New
York City.
When he and Jenny were kids, the first thing she always did when
she came to visit was show him the new books she’d brought. She’d
always hoped Will would share her excitement over them.
But Will never could. Reading had always been difficult for him—
so difficult that a specialist doctor in Sacramento had been consulted.
The doctor had said that Will suffered from a condition called “word
blindness.” Will had (and still did) thought the diagnosis silly, for he
could see the words just fine. It was just that they tended to slip and
slide around, as if he were trying to pick a ball bearing out of a bowl
of peeled grapes.
As he’d grown older, Will had learned how to muscle his way
through a text—he could hardly have kept up with his classes at the
Polytechnic otherwise. But even now, he found reading a tedious,
headachy chore.
52
Not wanting to forestall her own enjoyment, but still wanting to
include Will in it, Jenny had come up with the idea of reading the
books to him aloud. And this Will had enjoyed very much, because
Jenny had a flair for the dramatic. In this way he and “Scuff ” had
passed many a fine hour.
But he wasn’t a kid anymore, and there was really only one thing
up here that now interested him. Reaching past the books, he felt
around behind them for the half-empty bottle of rye whiskey he’d hidden up here long ago. Like everything else, it was covered in a layer
of dust, but he ignored this as he pulled out the cork with his teeth.
He took a pull, finding it no mellower than it had been when he was
fifteen, but the harsh burn of the alcohol nicely reinforced his feeling
of being unfairly treated and all-around hard used.
“Did you even read the terms of the apprenticeship contract,
Will?” he mimicked Father’s voice to himself. He took another swig.
“Bastard!”
He threw back a few more angry mouthfuls, but getting plowed
was not really what he wanted to do. He suddenly remembered the letter in his pocket—a letter from Ben! He drew it out quickly. It was thin
and light in his hand, but at least it was something. First, he examined
the seal. Will wouldn’t put it past Uncle Royce to have read the letter
before handing it over. But the seal seemed intact, and if it had been
steamed the ink would have smudged.
He tore it open quickly. To his surprise—and dismay—it contained
only a single sheet of paper. It was a very fine piece of stationery,
bordered and engraved with a rampant eagle which had clasped, in its
claw, a two-sided scroll. One side of the scroll read “Ex Fide Fortis” on
the other side read, “From Faith, Strength.” Beneath the eagle were
the words:
The Stanton Institute
New York City
A beautiful piece of paper, clearly swiped from Ben’s employer.
But it hardly seemed worth the swiping, for Ben had only written eight
words on it:
A Battle of Wills
53
Dreadnought Stanton 32: “The Warlock’s Curse.” Page 153.
Will puzzled over this for a moment. He knew what the writing
referred to, of course; Volume 32 of The True Life Tales of Dreadnought
Stanton. Ben didn’t even have to give the volume number. While The
Warlock’s Curse had always been one of the lesser-known installments,
the fact that Edison Studios had recently selected it as the basis for the
first-ever Dreadnought Stanton photoplay had caused it to skyrocket
in prominence. The motion picture was to debut with great fanfare on
New Year’s Day, and all the movie magazines were filled with news of
the production, which was rumored to be the most lavish and expensive Edison had ever undertaken. Even Walnut Grove, the small town
nearest the Edwards’ ranch (which didn’t even have a moving picture
theater) was plastered with handbills from rival theaters in Sacramento
and Stockton advertising the film’s premiere.
The Warlock’s Curse was among the many volumes that Jenny had
left behind, and Will located it easily. He pulled it from the shelf and
blew dust off it. On the cover was a picture of a young man’s face
drawn in two halves—one half that of a nice all-American boy, the
other half twisted and sneering, demonic. The picture gave away just
about all there was to the plot—the kid on the cover had inherited a
family curse or something, and Dreadnought Stanton had to defeat
the evil spirit who possessed him.
Will quickly turned to page 153. It was a page of illustration, showing a magical sigil, but with no other explanation. Will flipped back a
couple pages and was laboriously scanning the text to try to figure out
what part of the story the illustration was in support of, when a voice
called from below:
“Hey, you up there?”
It was Jenny. Goddamn it! But of course she knew where to find
him, this was where they’d played together as kids. Still, it annoyed
him that she assumed she’d find him here—as if nothing about him
had changed or ever would change. Why did everyone treat him like
that?
54
“What do you want?” he growled forbiddingly. But Jenny had already climbed the ladder to the hayloft and was settling herself in
next to him, taking care with her tidy costume. A shining curl had
escaped from the thick mass of hair piled atop her head. Her very
presence here seemed outrageous. It was one thing for her to come
up here when she was a girl, with scuffed knees and freckles. But now
she dressed like a woman and smelled like a woman, and it was a clear
violation of every secret hideout code ever written.
Will quickly tucked Ben’s letter into the pulp novel, and shoved
them both inside his coat. Jenny didn’t notice, too busy eyeing the
dusty bottle of whiskey in his hand.
“Thank God!” She seized it and wrenched out the cork before Will
could protest. “I was hoping you’d have a drink. And I wasn’t about
to squeeze in between Laddie and Lillie looking for one. Those two
are like the stones of the pyramids, you can’t get a piece of paper in
between them!”
Will did not comment, but watched Jenny take a long swallow of
the rye. She only gagged on it a little, then wiped her mouth with the
back of her hand.
“And of course, after you stormed off, your father felt it was his
duty to make small talk with me. You ever try to make small talk with
your father? Especially when he’s mad?” Jenny shivered at the memory. “Your family tires me out.”
“You too?” Will said. Jenny took another snort, then capped the
bottle and settled back comfortably, looking around. “Hasn’t changed
much,” was her conclusion. “You’ve still got my books!”
“Yep, it’s like I’m still twelve years old,” Will said bitterly.
“Boy, I sure liked the Dreadnought Stantons.” Jenny looked over
the titles, smiling. If she noticed the absence of Volume 32, she didn’t
mention it. “You remember the fight we had over those? I wanted to
be Admiral Dewey and you gave me a bloody nose.”
Will rolled his eyes. It had been a ridiculous fight. Jenny had been
reading him an especially patriotic Stantonade in which the great
Sophos was called upon by Congress to investigate the magical theft of
A Battle of Wills
55
a jeweled sword presented to Admiral Dewey by President McKinley.
They’d both been so excited by the action in the book that they’d
quickly dispensed with Jenny just reading it and went on to playing it
out. It had been great fun ... until Jenny demanded to play the role of
Admiral Dewey. She said it was only fair, because Will had gotten most
of the other good parts—but he found the idea so ridiculous he’d been
forced to object to it just on principle. She called him a nincompoop.
He told her to both “go soak her head” and “dry up.”
Perhaps it was the contradictory nature of these two statements
that had made Jenny shove him. Will had shoved her back. And then
there had been hair-pulling and fists started to fly, and finally Jenny
ran to his mother, crying, her nose bleeding. Ma’am, who tended to
be quite democratic about such things, did not scold Will for hitting
a girl, or even for hitting someone younger than him. Instead, she
had given Jenny a clean rag to staunch the bleeding and then told her
if she wanted to be Admiral Dewey she had to keep her guard up.
Additionally, she confided that, like the Spanish Pacific fleet, Will had
a tendency to leave himself open on the right. Jenny was an apt pupil;
the next time she and Will got into a scuffle, she walloped him handily.
“Yeah, I remember.” Will said, watching as Jenny smoothed her
serge skirt over her thighs. Her button-top shoes peeked out under the
ruffled hem, and his eyes wanted to linger on her slim ankle. He looked
away, clearing his throat. “Now, I’ve bought you a drink. So why don’t
you go ahead and get lost? I’m sure Ma’am will wonder where you’ve
gotten to. Sorry I can’t offer you any Sen-Sen, but there’s peppermint
grows just outside the barn door if you want to chew some ...”
She frowned at him. “What do you have against me, anyway? We
used to have lots of fun together. You got a girl or something, afraid
she’ll get mad at you for sitting with me up in the hayloft?”
“No, I don’t have a girl,” Will said. “I’m twelve years old,
remember?”
“Oh, cut it out. You’re being mulish, and it doesn’t pay,” Jenny
snapped. “You and I have more in common than you think. Probably
more now than we ever had when we were kids.”
56
Will smirked indulgently. “What do you figure we have in
common?”
“Everyone expects too little of us,” she said quickly. “You always
hear people complaining about how horrible it is when others expect
too much of them. But it’s worse the other way around. Isn’t it?”
Will pondered this, then nodded in slow agreement. “But you’re
an heiress. Why should anyone expect anything of you? You don’t have
anything to prove. You don’t have to make a living. You just have to sit
back and let everyone treat you like a queen.”
“Treat me like a set of silver being polished up for a shop window,
you mean,” Jenny grumbled. She reached for the bottle of whiskey
again, but Will quickly tucked it away, mindful of her father sitting at
the dinner table just a few hundred yards away.
“Miss Murison’s is pretty good ... as girls’ schools go ...” Jenny parroted derisively. “I’ve only learned one thing in that ‘girls’ school’ that’s
worth more than two pins—and that’s excellent French. Without it I
could never have read Monsieur Bachelier’s thesis. You would love it,
William, it’s on the use of Brownian motion to evaluate stock options.”
She paused, sighing dreamily, as if she were discussing the latest moving picture star. Then she frowned again. “Of course, when I try to
discuss Bachelier’s work with my mathematics tutor, all he wants to do
is stare into my eyes.”
“Gee, you got it rough,” Will deadpanned. “Math tutors staring
into your blue eyes. How can you stand it?”
“I can’t stand it!” she countered sharply. “And don’t you dare poke
fun, William Edwards. You don’t understand what it’s like to have no
one—not one single person—take you seriously. Your teachers, Mr.
Tesla ... they all think you’re a genius. Everybody takes you seriously.”
“Not everybody,” Will muttered. Not the one person who mattered.
Jenny heaved a sigh. “Well, that’s how parents are,” she said. “How
fathers are, at least. I couldn’t say about mothers.”
Jenny had lost her mother when she was three years old, and despite the fact that Ma’am was a loving witchly godmother, it wasn’t the
same. Will hastened to change the uncomfortable subject.
A Battle of Wills
57
“That’s how people are,” he said. “They’re unpredictable, they
don’t make decisions rationally or logically, and they usually don’t
make much sense. It drives me up a tree.”
“I suppose that’s why you like machines so much, right?” Jenny
mused. “Because they do what you expect?”
Will nodded, surprised. She leaned forward.
“But you see, I like things that do what you don’t expect,” she said.
“For instance, when most people think about mathematics, they think
of boring equations—you know, like two plus two equals four. But
there are other equations, William. Equations that seem just as simple,
except when you put in different numbers, the strangest things come
out. They seem so boring on the surface, but then when you realize
how incredibly, beautifully complex they are it’s just ... wonderful.”
Will was transfixed by how radiant her face had suddenly become.
He recognized that kind of rapture. He smiled at her, and she smiled
back, and through some unspoken agreement, they decided to be
friends again.
And now that they were friends again, Jenny leaned toward him
and dropped her voice low.
“William,” she said, “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“Miss Hansen!” He feigned outrage. “I’ll have you know, I’m not
that kind of fellow!”
Snorting, Jenny punched him in the arm.
“You want to get out of here, right? I mean, get to Detroit, get to
your apprenticeship, everything?”
“Yes,” Will said. “More than anything.”
“All right, then hear me out. Don’t say anything until I’m done.”
She took a deep breath, then seemed to lose her courage. “It’s just that
I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but until I heard your situation
it never quite gelled, you know?”
“No, I don’t know,” Will said. “Spit it out. What are you talking
about?”
Jenny drew another deep breath. “All right. You know my mother
died when I was very young. And you know that she came from money,
58
and she left a bundle. That bundle was put into trust for me and my
sister.” She paused. “Now, in Claire’s case the money goes to ... her
support.”
Will said nothing, but nodded. He had heard about Jenny’s older
sister Claire. She was a victim of the Black Flu epidemics, and was,
according to his brothers’ whispered gossip, horribly disfigured and
deformed. She lived in an asylum somewhere, they said.
“In my case, however,” Jenny continued, “I come into my money
free and clear when I’m twenty-one. Or”—she paused meaningfully—
“when I get married. Whichever comes first.”
She let the silence hang for a long time. Will didn’t say anything, and
Jenny evidently interpreted his silence as a failure of comprehension.
“We get married, dummy!” she said.
“Yes, Jenny,” Will said. “I got it. You couldn’t be any clearer if you
whitewashed it on the side of a barn and then set the barn on fire.
However, I was waiting for you to explain exactly how you think we
can do that, when neither one of us is old enough.”
“We are most certainly old enough!” she said. “By law, the groom
has to be over eighteen and the bride over fifteen. Well, you just turned
eighteen and I’m almost eighteen myself—”
“You still have to have your parents’ permission if you’re under
twenty-one,” Will pointed out. “How do you reckon we get that?” Will
imagined asking Father for permission to marry Jenny. The image
was terrifying—but not as terrifying as asking Mr. Hansen the same
question.
“Oh, ‘pshaw. Who doesn’t lie about their age? You look twenty
one, especially if we clean you up and put you in a suit.”
Will was skeptical. “What makes you think a hot marriage license
will cut any ice with your mother’s estate attorneys?”
“You leave that to me,” Jenny said. “I have ... connections. As long
as I’ve got a marriage certificate I can get the estate released. And I’ve
got money to start us off. Dad’s always giving me cash for dresses and
chocolates and junk like that, and I’ve saved it up.”
A Battle of Wills
59
Will was beginning to feel slightly horrified. It was clear that, far
beyond just “thinking” about this scheme, Jenny had put a lot of actual planning into it.
“Jenny, come on. Even if you got the money it would just be a
matter of time before the ruse was discovered. What then?”
Jenny waved a hand. “Who cares? Possession is nine-tenths of the
law. Once I have the money, they’ll have to chase me down to get it
back. What better place for me to lay low for a while than Detroit?
And even if they find me, and try to sue me for the return of the funds,
it’ll take years to wind through the courts. By the time anyone makes
any kind of judgment I’ll probably be twenty-one anyway, and it won’t
matter!”
Will stared at her. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“And you don’t feel like it’s kind of a dirty trick? On your dead
mother and your living father?”
“What do either one of our fathers have to do with anything?”
Jenny countered acidly. “I thought from your performance at the dinner table that you’d be all to happy to be shut of yours.”
“Easy for you to say!” Will lifted his eyebrows. “My father isn’t
likely to hunt you down and beat you to a pulp.”
“Oh, Dad’s a big pussycat,” she sniffed. “You know he likes you.
He’ll be thrilled having you for a son-in-law.”
“But it won’t be real.” Will’s head was spinning. “And what if you
fall in love with someone for real and want to marry him? You’ll have
to divorce me—”
“Or kill you,” Jenny grinned. “Then I could be a widow. No shame
in that.”
“I don’t much care for the way you think, Jenny Hansen.”
“All I’m saying, William, is that it’s high time we both showed everyone that they shouldn’t underestimate us. Everything else is just ...
logistics.”
Will grinned slightly. “And after all, you do have a crush on me—”
60
“I do not!” Jenny screeched, eyes wide with indignation. “When
I was ten, I was impressed that you could whistle through the gap in
your teeth. Can you still do that?”
Will puckered and whistled. But the gap in his teeth was long gone,
and the sound was puny and unimpressive. Jenny waved dismissively.
“You’re clearly not half the man you once were. So we’ve got to keep
it just business. But look, it can work. We can do this.”
“And what do you get out of it?”
“I get to be a married woman who makes my own choices about
things.” She spoke with strange fierceness. “That’s all you need to know.
You have to promise me not to ask any more questions than that.”
Will thought about everything she had said. He couldn’t really be
considering it. It was crazy!
“We sure couldn’t go into Walnut Grove to get a license,” he
mused. “The clerk there has known me since I was in short pants,
and he’d have to send the paperwork to Stockton anyway, since it’s the
county seat.”
“Stockton’s where we need to go.” Jenny’s quick certainty gave
Will the impression that she’d written away for the information weeks
ago. “Most local offices are closed the Friday after Thanksgiving, but
since Stockton is the county seat the offices there have to stay open.
But I bet you the clerk will try to go home early. And if we don’t get
there tomorrow we’ll have to wait the whole weekend and that would
ruin everything.”
Will nodded, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“Maybe I could get the Baker off my friend Pask. It’s only a few
hours drive to Stockton from here.”
Will knew the road like the back of his hand. He and Pask often
drove down to Stockton to take in moving pictures and moon over
unapproachable girls at dance halls. And the weather had been dry
for the past few weeks, so no worries about getting stuck in the mud ...
“Will he loan it to you?”
A Battle of Wills
61
Will made a face. “Just how do you figure we’d return it? No, I’d
have to buy it from him outright. I guess he’d sell it to me. You said
you had money?”
Jenny nodded. “Cover your eyes.”
“What?”
“Just do it!”
Will covered his eyes, peeking through his fingers. Jenny hiked
up the hem of her skirt. In her stocking garter was tucked a wad of
banknotes so fat he wondered how they stayed put. He was so shocked
he forgot he was supposed to be keeping his eyes closed.
“Jiminy Christmas!” he gasped. “Just how many dresses and chocolate bars does your Dad think you need, anyway?”
“I’ve been saving for a long time,” she said. “And supplementing
it ... creatively.” She did not elaborate as she let her skirt drop. She
pressed the wad of cash into his hand.
Will looked at it with astonishment. It had to be almost a thousand
bucks! He didn’t say anything.
“Well?” she spoke with some impatience. “Are you in?”
“Yeah,” he said finally, tucking the money into his pocket. “I’m
in.”
The resolve in his voice was apparently insufficient, for Jenny narrowed her eyes and stared hard at him for a moment. Then, with great
deliberation, she spit in her palm and extended her hand.
“Shake on it,” she demanded.
Without hesitation, Will spit in his palm, and they pressed their
hands together, damp and sticky. Jenny grinned broadly.
“That’s that, then. I’m going back in to help your Ma’am with the
cleaning up. Meet you back here tomorrow morning?”
“Before dawn,” said Will.
“Wear your best suit,” Jenny said, as she slid down the hayloft ladder. “I won’t marry you if you look like a hobo.”
After she was gone, Will withdrew the wad of banknotes from his
pocket. He stared at them, sudden delight rising within him. The more
he thought about the plan, the more he liked it. He could be in Detroit,
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working at Tesla Industries, before the end of the month! Tucking the
money back inside his coat, he hurried down the ladder, glancing at
his wristwatch, wondering if he could make it over to Pask’s place
before too late ...
“Hey, Will.” The voice came from over near one of the stables.
Nate’s voice. Will froze, wondering how long his brother had been
there. Knowing Nate, he’d lit out for the stable almost as quickly as
Will had—he didn’t like to be too long away from the horses.
“Hey, Nate.” Will didn’t think his brother had overheard any of
the discussion between him and Jenny; they’d been speaking quietly,
and Nate was not the type to listen in on conversations. He just wasn’t
interested in them. Nate was standing by the sorrel mare’s stable, visibly fretting. The mare had a crazy look in her eye and her velvety
muzzle was flecked with foam.
“Given her a purgative,” said Nate, eyes fixed on the glossy
Morgan. “I may have to have Ma’am look at her.”
“Nothing Ma’am likes more than taking care of sick things,” Will
observed. “Nice, helpless little things.”
Nate didn’t turn from the ailing Morgan. “You talking about
horses, or you talking about yourself ?”
“Take a wild guess,” Will said. “I have to go, Nate. See you around.”
“I guess I know horses pretty well.” Will had turned to go, but
Nate’s words stopped him. “Sometimes they can be pretty stubborn.
Like this mare, we’ve tried and tried to keep her out of the clover, and
she just keeps going after it. It’s not good for her, but I guess she likes
the taste.”
Will released a long breath, clenched his fists. Even though Nate’s
lectures were milder than most, he still recognized one when he heard
it, and he still resented it. He said nothing.
“Well, we’ll keep trying to keep her out of that pasture.” Nate’s
voice was slow and resigned. “But she’ll probably keep going back to
it, and one day it may kill her. That’d be a darn shame, because she’s
a really nice horse.”
A Battle of Wills
63
“Yep, it would be a darn shame,” Will said. “I got it, Nate. Horses
are stupid and stubborn and smart people like you and Father have to
figure out what’s best for them.”
Nate looked pained.
“I never said you were stupid,” he said. “This mare isn’t stupid.
She just doesn’t understand. That doesn’t make her stupid.”
“But I’m not a horse, Nate.” Will clipped the words. “I am a human being. I can think things through, predict the consequences, make
informed choices. I can do that for myself. I don’t need anyone to do
it for me.”
Nate drew in a deep breath, let it out. Then he nodded.
“I guess,” he said. “If you say so.”
He pushed back from the stable, and turned his gaze onto Will, and
for the first time it was like he was really seeing his younger brother. It
made Will uncomfortable. There was something about Nate’s direct,
unshifting gaze that made one feel as if he knew too much.
“I had a letter from Ben the other day,” Nate said, scrutinizing
Will. “And I think I figured something out. I think I figured out the difference between Ben and the rest of us—well, me, Argus and Laddie
anyway. We all believe everyone is doing the best he can. Even Father.”
He paused, thoughtfully. “Especially Father. Even when we don’t understand the things he does, we believe that he does them for reasons
that are good. I believe it, I know Argus does, and Laddie too—as
much as Laddie believes anything. But Ben ... doesn’t. Ben doesn’t
believe it at all.”
Nate blinked once, then asked, with real curiosity, “What do you
believe, Will?”
“Sure, I believe Father does what he does for reasons that are
good,” Will said, quickly and bitterly. “Good for him, that is. He just
doesn’t concern himself about whether they’re good for anyone else.”
Nate absorbed this gravely. Then he sighed. “I don’t think that’s
true. Can’t prove it one way or the other, of course. But I guess I’m
willing to take him on faith. You and Ben aren’t.”
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Will was silent for a long time. First, the words made him numb—
but almost instantly, that numbness kindled into hot fury. Take him on
faith? Really? He should just ... surrender? Cowtow to someone else’s
high-handed notion of what was right for his life?
“Thanks for the advice, Nate.” He was so angry he almost choked
on the words. “But you can keep it. Good luck with the mare. Honestly,
I hope she gets in the clover again. I hope she kills herself on it. At
least that way she’ll die doing what she wants. She may be just a dumb
animal, but even a dumb animal deserves a choice.”
Then he got on his bicycle and pedaled furiously to Pask de la
Guerra’s house.
Chapter Two
A Sheep in Will’s Clothing
E
arly the next morning, Will met Jenny behind the barn. They walked
in silence through the misty half-light to a grove of oaks along the
wide slow Sacramento River. It was a cold morning; frost made the
fallen leaves a sparkling carpet of orange and red and yellow that
crunched under their feet as they walked. The air smelled of distant
smoke, from farmers burning off the last of their fields.
The clearing where Will had parked the Baker was another place
they’d used to play. Jenny smiled in recognition, raising her gloved
fingers to push aside a tattered strand of sisal dangling from a thick
branch—remnant of a long-gone rope swing.
But when she laid eyes on the Baker—on the sloppy red and green
paint, and the streaks of mud that still lingered from its dunk in the
irrigation ditch—pleasant nostalgia gave way to outrage.
“Just how much of my money did you spend on this heap?” she
circled the Baker with a frown, eyeing the cracked leather of the folding top.
“Pask took five hundred.”
“Are you kidding? That’s more than half the price of a brand new
Model T!”
“As it happens, Pask does not operate a Ford franchise,” said Will,
archly. “And this automobile cost almost four thousand when it was new.”
“This automobile has not been new in a long time.” Jenny’s frown deepened as she examined the auto’s stubby bonnet, the unique hallmark of its
66
type. “And honestly, William ... an electric? Who buys an electric out here
in the sticks?”
Will felt secretly smug. She was right, of course; an electric had
been an unwise choice for Pask’s family, living as they did in the middle
of California’s Central Valley where electricity wasn’t always available. But that inconvenience had been one of the motivating factors
behind the improvements Will had made. He couldn’t wait to show
her what the “electric” could do.
Jenny seemed to be waiting for him to argue back at her. When he
did not, she concluded: “Well, I think your friend Pask is a swindler.
But if this flivver will get us to Stockton in time, I guess it’s worth it.”
Remembering that there were bills remaining from the money
Jenny had given him, Will began pulling them out of his pocket. Jenny
stopped him with a hand.
“No, keep it. If you’re going to pretend to be my husband you’re
going to have to do all the paying. It won’t look right if I do it.”
Jenny stowed the two bags she’d brought with her—a little calfskin
handgrip and a canvas laundry bag—under the front seat. Noticing
Will’s puzzled glance at the laundry bag, she said: “There wasn’t time
to make sandwiches. But I figured we’d get hungry, so I got a couple of
the pies and some of the leftover turkey meat from the icebox.”
Will had already stowed his own bag the night before. He was
bringing nothing but his satchel of tools. Everything else he could pick
up in Detroit, but his tools—instruments of all sizes, from wrenches
and come-alongs to delicate watchmaker and jeweler’s sets—were like
extensions of his hands, and he could not imagine being without them.
Jenny began doing up the buttons on her light canvas duster. “I
talked with Dad last night. I told him one of my friends from back
East was stuck at Miss Murison’s over the holiday, and I was going to
go back to keep her company. I told him you’d offered to hitch up the
buggy and take me over to the station to catch the early train. He won’t
miss me until he’s back in San Francisco on Monday. With any luck,
we’ll be in Detroit before anyone thinks to look for us.” She climbed
into the car, tucking her skirts tight around her legs and fussing with
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her hat. It was an enormous hat, swathed all around with heavy gauze,
just as Lillie’s had been. It must have made the trip from San Francisco
in the Pierce Arrow’s trunk, for there certainly hadn’t been room for
it in the back seat. “How about you? After that show last night, won’t
your folks suspect the worst when you go missing?”
“Oh, I always run off to Pask’s house when I’m mad,” Will swung
the steering tiller up and climbed into the driver’s seat. “He promised
to cover for me. If my parents call over, he’s going to tell them that
I’ve barricaded myself in their barn and nothing short of an act of
Congress will get me out.”
Jenny lifted an amused eyebrow. “Well, I certainly hope you didn’t
tell him to say exactly that,” she said. “After all, I’m sure your brother
Argus is just itching to draft some maiden legislation.”
Will smirked as he lowered the tiller over his lap and reached down
to press the ignition switch. The car made no sound as it started, but
the needles on the two half-moon dash-gauges—one for volts, one for
amperes—jittered and rose. He moved the controller—a knife switch
by his left leg—into the car’s first forward speed, and the Baker slid
noiselessly into motion.
The service road was rough and badly rutted, and Will had chosen
it only because it would take them to the main road without passing
the house. Will expected that Jenny would pull her heavy motoring veil
down over her face, but instead she just took a deep breath of the cool
morning air that made her cheeks flush pink.
“I always love starting a trip,” she sighed. “It’s like ... oh, I don’t
know, sharpening a pencil for the first time. It’s very satisfying. I’m so
glad you’re coming with me. I knew you would.”
“What made you so sure?” said Will. “You couldn’t have known
how much I wanted to get away.”
“Actually, I did,” Jenny admitted. “Your mother wrote my dad
about the fight you had with your father, and I happened to catch
a glimpse of the letter. So I figured you might be amenable.” She
paused. “And if you hadn’t the guts, well, at most I would have wasted
a little time. Maybe I would have asked one of your brothers instead.”
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The very idea made Will bark a laugh. “Like who? Laddie? San
Francisco’s most eligible bachelor? As you’ve pointed out, he and Lillie
are like the stones of the pyramids.”
“Why didn’t she marry him?” Jenny wondered. “I can’t even imagine marrying a man like your brother Argus. He takes up every particle
of air in any room he’s in.”
“Laddie has no ambition,” said Will. “Argus has enough for both
of them. You’re a girl, you tell me. I guess girls marry ambition.”
“Girls like Lillie do,” Jenny said. “Girls who have none of their
own, that is.”
“You don’t think she has ambition?” Will said. “Seems to me she’s
got plenty and then some.”
“Yes, but she only cares about being the social queen of San
Francisco,” Jenny sniffed. “That’s not the kind of ambition I’m talking
about.”
“What other kind of ambition can a girl have?”
“Oh, forget it,” Jenny snapped. “Let’s stop talking about them. I
had quite enough of those three on the way down from San Francisco.
Now, as far as which other Edwards brother I would marry, if you
were unavailable ... I was thinking more of your brother Ben.”
“You’ve never even met him!”
“I’ve seen your Ma’am’s pictures of him. He’s not bad looking.”
“A fine thing for my future wife to say,” Will grumbled. “Besides,
when it comes to being unavailable, Ben’s got all of us beat.” Thinking
of Ben reminded Will of the letter in his coat pocket, and its simple,
mysterious reference to The Warlock’s Curse. “Honestly, sometimes I
wonder if he really exists at all.”
“What does he do out there in New York? He has a job at the
Stanton Institute, doesn’t he?” Jenny asked. “Does he actually work for
the Dreadnought Stanton, help him retrieve artifacts and quiet restless
mummies and all that, just like it says in the books?”
“I don’t know,” said Will. “From what I’ve heard, his position is
more ... administrative. I heard Laddie once call him a functionary.
Argus says he’s wasting his life in service to an outdated ideal.”
69
“And your mother and father? What do they say?”
“They don’t say anything.”
Jenny knit her brow. “Dad says your family’s strange,” she said, but
did not elaborate. She reached up and braced herself as they rounded
a sharp curve, where the service road angled to skirt the farm’s southernmost pasture. In the east, the rising sun was casting its first bright
rays over the tops of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and in the chilly
pinkish light Will could see the sorrel mare—Nate’s despair—standing
by the split-rail fence, happily munching on clover.
Will smiled with secret satisfaction. The last thing he’d done before
he’d met Jenny that morning had been to throw open the mare’s stall
and shoo her out of it. She’d found her way to where she wanted to
be. Good for her.
Even a dumb animal deserves a choice.
Will and Jenny did not speak much after they turned onto the main
route south to Stockton. The morning was clear and fine, and the sky
was painted with colors bright as the label on a produce box.
The silence went beyond their lack of conversation. Except for
the creak of the Baker’s leaf-springs and chassis, and the crunch of its
rubber tires on the small gravel of the dirt road, the machine was perfectly silent. The Otherwhere Flume Will had installed emitted only
a faint hiss, like the sound of a mighty waterfall heard from very, very
far away.
“We’re not going to have to stop and charge up the battery, are
we?” Jenny asked. “Can we make it all the way to Stockton?”
“We sure can,” said Will. “It’s not an electric. Or rather, it is an
electric motor, but it doesn’t use a conventional electric battery. This
car is powered by an Otherwhere Flume.” When she gave him a
blank look, Will added, “It’s my own design. I based it on a classical
Otherwhere Conductor, but I made several improvements.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the first thing about Otherwhere power,” Jenny said. “I did read an article once about how it’s going to
revolutionize civilization, or end tyranny, or increase global grain
70
yields—something like that.” She paused, knitting her brow thoughtfully. “Or maybe that was an article about steam tractors. I can’t quite
remember.”
“I don’t know about ending tyranny or increasing grain yields,”
Will said. “But I do believe Otherwhere power will revolutionize civilization. And I know Mr. Tesla thinks so too.”
Jenny nodded. “So how does it work?” She lowered her voice and
leaned slightly toward him. “An Otherwhere isn’t ... magic?” The last
word was spoken with a distinctly apprehensive edge. But then, remembering who she was speaking to, she hastily added, “That’s not
to say anything against your Ma’am, of course ... you know I haven’t
a thing against Old Users ... it’s just some do, and ... oh, I’m sorry.”
After stammering all this out, she sank back into the seat, red-faced
and embarrassed, and pressed her lips tightly together.
Will said nothing. He’d had this exact same awkward interaction
dozens of times, always with others close to his own age. They would
seem to take the fact that his mother was a witch in stride—until, in
some unguarded moment, their true feelings would slip out. Their
distaste, their resentment—their fear. This was always followed by a
clumsy apology. It was like clockwork.
But he hadn’t expected it of Jenny.
Of course, he couldn’t really blame her. They were both members
of what the newspapers had dubbed the “Malmantic Generation”—
the first generation to live under the shadow of the Black Flu.
The first case of the gruesome malady—typified by greasy tarcolored eruptions and blazing fever—was reported in 1878. By 1880,
the epidemic had engulfed the globe. The wildfire quickness with
which the disease emerged and spread was horrifying. But stranger,
and even more terrible, was the fact that it only affected children.
Infant children. Not every child caught it, but few families were spared
the heartbreak of at least one case. Will’s own sister, Catherine—born
a few years before him—had lived only a few days before succumbing.
And while Jenny’s older sister, Claire, had survived the illness, it had
left her a lifelong invalid.
71
Over the next ten years, hundreds of thousands died and the lives
of millions more were ruined. The turning point came when scientists
at a company called Sanitas Pharmaceutics made a key discovery—
the Black Flu was not a strain of influenza. It was not any kind of
virus or bacterium at all. Rather, it was an allergic reaction, triggered
by the passage of magical energy through the channels of the body.
And while some degree of allergic sensitivity was found in all children
born after 1878—the scientists could not find a single individual born
earlier who showed signs of it.
The scientists could not explain this strange sharp demarcation.
They could only give it a name and a date: The Great Change of 1878.
Learning the true nature of the malady had made it possible to
develop a medication to combat it. Stopping the allergic reaction
merely required blocking the channels through which magical energy
flowed in the body. Creating a chemical compound that produced this
effect was not difficult. It was called the Panchrest, and it successfully
brought the Black Flu to heel. In less than two years, the worst was
over.
But the Black Flu had shredded the civic fabric, and that was not so
easily mended. Before the Great Change, magic had been woven into
society at every level. It was called upon for small daily conveniences
and grand splendid achievements alike. Magic, it was often said, had
built America. And in the decades preceding the Great Change, the
uses of magic had become ever more industrial and expansive—so
vast that no one could have imagined any limit to them.
But then, the Malmantic Generation had come along. They could
not use magic as their parents and grandparents had. Those who even
attempted it would suffer bouts of violent illness, the result of their
inborn allergic sensitivity. And the more magic they used, the sicker
they would become.
People born before 1878—like Ma’am—came to be called “Old
Users.” They suffered no ill-effects from channeling magic. There was
nothing stopping them from using it as they always had—and so they
did. Why shouldn’t they? They had grown up in a world steeped in it.
72
They were used to its conveniences, and they were unable to comprehend the fear and resentment they engendered in the distinctly different species of human that was destined to replace them.
But now the century had turned. The Malmantic Generation—the
first generation of the twentieth century—was coming into its own.
The youngest members were already well into their thirties. What
form would those fears and resentments take, Will wondered. Would
the day come when his Ma’am would be truly hated for what she was,
even by her beloved Goddaughter?
Jenny broke what had become a long silence. “You sore at me?”
Will had slowed the Baker to a crawl. They had come to a place
where irrigation runoff from the hill above had made the road soggy.
“You asked if Otherwheres are magic,” Will finally said, as he
looked down along the running board to gauge the softness of the
mud as he brought the Baker across it. “Otherwheres are just different dimensions of our own reality. Back in the day when witches and
warlocks were more common than they are now, Otherwheres were
mostly accessed using magic. But now we access them using science.
So ... nothing to worry about. All right?”
“All right,” said Jenny, relaxing visibly. “But I still don’t quite get
what an Otherwhere is, exactly.”
“It’s a different plane of reality, a different ... shade.” Will struggled for the right words. “Scientists believe there must be an infinite
number of them. Some Otherwheres are very much like the world we
know. The laws of physics are the same and everything. Some are very
hostile places, with laws of physics that are so different human beings
can’t even exist in them. Exploring Otherwheres has always been dangerous for just that reason. You don’t know where you’re going to end
up, or if you’ll be able to get back.”
Jenny tapped a fingernail against her chin. “I wonder if anyone’s
ever tried using Monsieur Poincaire’s hyperbolic geometry to mathematically map this infinity of universes,” she mused. “It seems perfectly suited to the job. And it might be kind of fun.”
73
Will emitted a low whistle, looking at her sidelong. “Fun?” He
pulled down the bill of his tweed touring cap against the glare of her
blinding intellect. “I’m beginning to think that math professor of yours
was staring into your eyes out of pure confusion.”
Jenny snorted derisively. “It’s all just numbers, William.”
“Well, let’s get back to my Otherwhere Flume, which is what you
asked me about. It all starts with finding an Otherwhere compatible
with our own universe’s physical laws. Maybe Poincairian hyperbolic
geometry could be applied to finding one, but that’s neither here nor
there. Because over two hundred have already been found, as the
result of decades of risky exploration. They’re called the Golden
Dimensions. They’re uninhabited and mostly physically identical to
our own universe.”
“Wait, there are some that are inhabited?” Jenny’s eyes became big
as plates. “By who?”
“I’m an engineer, not an anthropologist,” Will shrugged. “Anyway,
over the years, bright industrialists have built power plants in these
Otherwheres. Coal plants, steam—whatever unique generating resource is available. There’s one Otherwhere that’s filled with enormous
waterfalls; they’ve put in hydroelectric turbines just like they have at
Niagara Falls.”
Jenny was rapt.
“Anyway, all that power is transmitted from the Otherwhere into
our world. That’s what an Otherwhere Conductor is. It’s the power of
a whole coal plant, or hydroelectric plant, or steam plant, whooshing
through an infinitesimal transdimensional portal into our own reality,
where we can put it to whatever use we like.” He paused. “Hey, could
you dig out some of that food? I’m starving.”
Jenny reached under the seat for the bag she’d packed, and from
it, withdrew a whole apple pie. It was clearly a condemnation of the
quality of pie to be found in San Francisco that Jenny expected to be
able to break his Ma’am’s pie into neat wedges. But the flaky pastry
crumbled in her hand, and she frowned at the pie filling on her dainty
brown leather gloves.
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“Great,” she muttered. “Now my gloves will smell like pie. Here.”
Resting one hand on the tiller, Will took the ragged hunk of pie in
his other and quickly devoured it, licking the sweet sourness of apple
and cinnamon from his fingers then wiping his hand clean on his trousers. Jenny eyed him with mild disdain as she used a corner of the
laundry bag for a similar purpose.
“No wonder you want to go to Tesla Industries!” Jenny said, as she
tucked the bag back. “But what I don’t understand is why everything
isn’t powered by Otherwhere Flumes, or Conductors, or whatever?
This car runs beautifully! It’s quiet, and not at all dirty or smelly. And
as long as there’s power coming from the Otherwhere, there’s nothing
to stop us, isn’t that right?”
“Not a thing,” said Will, knowing that it wasn’t entirely the truth.
But he liked the glow of Jenny’s admiration, and thus he had no immediate interest in explaining Old Randall Rudge.
Of course, Old Randall Rudge had to be explained eventually, but
Will preferred to wait for that discussion until it became necessary.
They were passing through acres of almond orchards, the trees
stretching out in neat rows as far as the eye could see, when the Baker
began to slow. Glancing at the dash, Will watched the ampere gauge
plummet to below five, and knew that it was futile to continue; he
steered the auto off to the side of the road and brought it to a stop beneath a brilliantly-colored billboard advertising the premiere of Edison
Studios’ moving-picture version of The Warlock’s Curse. The enormous
advertisement was dominated by the sharply handsome features of
the idealized Sophos of the Stanton Institute. The famous warlock’s
eyes were rendered particularly prominently; large and green-glowing,
rimmed with blackest movie-idol kohl.
Given that they were driving along the well-traveled main road
between Sacramento and Stockton, they had already seen several such
billboards—and each time, Will had wondered about the letter from
Ben.
“What’s wrong?” said Jenny. “Why have we stopped?”
75
Will took his hands off the tiller and leaned back in his seat. Pushing
his motoring cap back on his head, he looked at his wristwatch.
“It’s noon,” he confirmed. “Old Randall Rudge in New Jersey
runs his experiments every day at this time, and he draws down just
about all the power the system has.” He turned to Jenny apologetically.
“I have a charging system for a secondary battery all worked out in my
head. If I’d had time to set it up, we could have just switched over to
battery when the Flume was low.”
“What are you talking about?” Jenny tucked back a thick tendril
of hair that dangled before her eyes; that particular curl had already
escaped its pins several times, Will had noticed.
“The biggest problem with my Flume actually lies with the
Otherwhere it draws power from. If I were a high-and-mighty industrialist, I could own my own power plant. But I’m not, and I don’t. So
I have to buy a license from someone who is, and does. That license
entitles me to a slice of the output of a single power plant.”
“So, what happened? You didn’t pay your Otherwhere bill?”
“No, I’m all paid up through the end of the year,” Will said. “But
the particular high-and-mighty industrialist from whom I bought my
license has demonstrated that he doesn’t particularly care how many
licenses he sells.”
Jenny made a sound of understanding. “Oh! So when your Mr.
Rudge, for instance, runs his experiments, it drains the pool for everyone. Why, I just call that bad business!”
“Profiteering is what we licensees call it,” said Will. “We’ve all
complained about it, but there’s not much we can do.”
“You know the other licensees?” Jenny said.
Will nodded. “We circulate a newsletter by post.”
He got out of the car to stretch his legs. The morning had warmed
up and the air smelled of smoke and sunshine. Judging from the white
mile-markers they’d been passing—and the increasing numbers of
driveways stretching off from the roadside—he figured they were only
about ten miles out of Stockton. They had plenty of time. He reached
76
back into the car and retrieved another chunk of pie, leaning on the
hood of the car to eat it.
“We all banded together and made Old Rudge promise to limit his
experiments to an hour a day.” Will brushed crumbs from his sleeve.
“Boy, what an hour that must be in New Jersey!”
“Sounds like you’ve had this license for a while,” Jenny said.
“Almost a year,” Will said. “I got it for a project at school, and I’ve
been tinkering with it ever since, hooking it up to various electrical
devices, perfecting my Flume. I finally decided to drop the whole thing
into Pask’s car because—” he stopped, suddenly feeling kind of sheepish. But Jenny was two steps ahead of him.
“Because I bet the license isn’t cheap and your folks don’t give you
as much pocket money as the grandson of a de la Guerra gets,” she
concluded. “If he liked the car with the Flume in it, he’d have to renew
the license, which meant you’d get to keep tinkering with it. Right?”
Will blinked at her. “You sure you don’t have some witch in you?”
he said, thinking of the uncanny perceptivity his mother’s magical
skills gave her.
Jenny shuddered. “No, I don’t have any witch in me,” she said.
“So we have to just sit around here waiting for Old Rudge to finish
his experiments in New Jersey?” She crossed her arms. “We do have a
wedding to get to.”
“Can’t be helped.” Will bent down to peer under the chassis,
idly examining the axles and leaf springs. “It’s the curse of a shared
resource.”
“So, what if we had our own Otherwhere?” Jenny asked. “All the
power from one coal plant whooshing straight through your Flume,
without anyone else tapping into it? Could we drive fifty miles an
hour? A hundred?” Her eyes gleamed.
Will paused to consider. “The chassis probably wouldn’t stand that
kind of speed for long,” he concluded. “Especially over these roads.
But you could build one that would. And with the right kind of roads,
you could really fly. A hundred miles an hour would be nothing if you
77
had thousands of horsepower. Someday, I bet you’ll see machines that
can do it.”
Jenny was silent for a long time, lost in thought. When she lifted
her head to look at him, there was awe in her eyes.
“Why, William, you’re a bona-fide genius.”
“Lay off,” he muttered, blushing. “People have been fooling
around with Otherwhere Conductors for years. I just figured a way to
get around a few things. My shabby Otherwhere license was the least
of my worries. Getting around the Connection Drop Problem, that
was the hard part.”
“The what?”
“Like I said, people have been fooling with Otherwhere Conductors
for years. The reason you don’t see them in automobiles like this one is
that there’s always been one big problem ... it’s called the Connection
Drop Problem. It’s easy enough to open a connection to an Otherwhere,
but it’s always been impossible to maintain that connection reliably.
The connections drop seemingly at random—and usually at the most
inconvenient moment possible. But everyone knew that it couldn’t just
be random—something had to be causing it. People have been trying to figure out what that something is for years. They’ve looked at
fluctuations in barometric pressure, at global temperatures, all sorts of
things, but no one could figure it out. But I figured it out. And once
I figured it out, I built the Flume and—” he trailed off, spreading his
hands as if further explanation was unnecessary.
Jenny leaned forward, elbows on the dash. “So, how did you do
it?”
“You ever hear of Röntgen rays?”
“Röntgen? He won that big prize from the dynamite mogul, didn’t
he?”
“The Nobel, yes. Ten years ago. When I was at the Polytechnic
I started getting interested in Röntgen rays. I learned that they were
all around us, just as a general background state. It was supposed that
they’d be at a higher level when sunspots flared up. I wondered if there
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was a correlation between these sunspots and the Connection Drop
Problem.”
“And was there?” Jenny asked.
“Several observatories around the world have been watching sunspots since 1849,” Will said. “They have almost a hundred years of
data on them. So I wrote away and requested copies.”
“So that was data about sunspots,” she said. “But how did you get
the data about dropped Otherwhere connections?”
“Tesla Industries,” said Will. “They’ve been working on this problem for years. They maintain a steady-state Otherwhere connection,
and they’ve been keeping records on it. Every time it’s randomly
knocked off line, they make a note of the date and time. My teacher at
the Polytechnic, Mr. Waters, knows one of the lead researchers there.
He got me a copy of those records—but it sure took some doing! Tesla
Industries is pretty secretive.”
“And once you had both sets of data, you simply had to apply a
Bayesean Linear Regression and poof!”
“Well, no.” Will admitted. He had no idea what a Bayesean Linear
Regression even was.
“So how did you compare the data?”
“I didn’t.” Will shrugged. “Before I had a chance to, another one
of my teachers—a planetary scientist, he’d heard what I was working
on—pulled me aside in the hall and shared an early draft of an article
he’d been asked to review for a journal. It showed how Röntgen rays
from the sun are stopped by the atmosphere surrounding the earth.
Some believe that a kind of magnetic field is involved.”
Jenny threw herself back in her seat, exasperated.
“Oh, now you’re just being horrible,” she growled. “I’ve heard of
shaggy dog stories, but never shaggy engineer stories! So what are you
telling me about Röntgen rays for, then?”
“I’m just trying to demonstrate to you that nothing in life is ever as
easy as you think it’s going to be,” Will said loftily.
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Jenny snorted. “Believe me, William Edwards, I don’t need you to
tell me that. Now, are you going to tell me what you discovered, or just
keep playing around?”
Will grinned. “I discovered that I was on the right track, but with
the wrong ray. It was cosmic rays that I should have been looking at. We
get about eight to ten solar flares every day that shower the earth with
cosmic rays. They’re strong enough to disrupt a connection.”
“So ... what do you do about it?”
“I’ve managed to create a pretty effective shield using the principles
of magnetism. What makes my Otherwhere Flume different from a
regular old Otherwhere Conductor is that I’ve added an electro-magnetic field generator to deflect stray cosmic rays. It’s powered out of
the Otherwhere itself, so the system is entirely self-sustaining. Which
reminds me ...” Will wanted to check and see if Rudge’s experiments
would have any impact on the strength of his electro-magnetic field
generator. Circling around to the back of the car he opened the trunk
and took a reading on a small dial. He was so absorbed in thought he
didn’t notice that Jenny was standing next to him.
“That’s it?” she asked, in astonishment. “It’s ... a cigar box!”
“That just houses the workings,” Will said. It was a good sturdy
wooden box, and Will had liked the colors of the label. He had especially liked the picture on the inside of the box’s cover, and he realized suddenly that Jenny would probably like it too. Lifting the lid, he
grinned as he showed it to her. She put a hand over her mouth and
giggled.
“The Hero of Manila!” she read, examining the old picture of
Admiral Dewey.
But the intricate workings of the device within quickly drew her
attention away from the brightly colored image. She bent down to get
a closer look.
“I would have guessed it to be much bigger!” Jenny said. “Your Mr.
Waters sure must have been impressed.”
“He never actually saw the prototype,” said Will. “I just built
it this past summer.” Will checked the thick silk-wrapped cord that
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connected the box to the Baker’s motor. He then made sure the Flume
was securely seated in the cradle he’d built for it, then closed the trunk.
Jenny was scrutinizing him.
“But before you graduated, you showed him your schematics and
all that, right?”
“No, I never drew anything up,” Will dusted off his hands. “Mr.
Waters wanted me to, but I didn’t see the need. I knew how I was
going to build it. He got the concept, just like you do. And his friend
at Tesla Industries, the lead researcher who got me their data on cosmic rays—a man named Grigory Grigoriyev, one of their leading
Otherwhere Engineers—he gets it too. He’s has asked to have me on
his team special. I can’t wait to show him what I’ve done!”
Jenny’s eyes widened in horror.
“You’re not going to show it to him, are you?”
“Well of course I am!” Will’s eyebrows shot up. “What’s the good
of building something this swell if you can’t share it?”
“What’s to keep them from stealing it from you?”
“Naw, that’s Edison you’re thinking of, and he’s in the movingpicture business now.” Will gestured at the billboard looming over
their heads. He came back around to the front of the car and peered
at the dials to see if the ampere gauge had come up at all. “Mr. Tesla
is a straight shooter. Mr. Waters says so.”
“William Edwards!” Will turned at the sound of command in
Jenny’s voice and found her planted right behind him. She was not
physically imposing—he’d always been taller than her—but the ferocious intensity in her blue eyes was enough to make him want to draw
back. Reaching up to seize his shoulders, she held him fast.
“Now listen,” said Jenny, in a firm, bell-clear tone. “I want you to
make me a promise, right this very second, or our deal is off.”
“P—promise?” he stammered. “What do you want me to promise?”
“I want you to promise me that you will not share your invention
with anyone at Tesla Industries until it’s protected by a United States
Patent. I will take care of it all— the filing, everything. I’ll get it patented for you.”
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“Get it patented for me?” Will was incredulous. “Jenny, what do
you know about patenting anything? You’re seventeen!”
“And you’re eighteen, and you’ve invented the most incredible thing
I ever heard of in my entire life!” She countered. “I know that if you
don’t protect your rights, you’ll lose them.” Jenny paused. “You’ve
made a great discovery. Don’t you know how great?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Look, haven’t I done OK so far?” Jenny lowered her hands, and
her voice became pleading. “Haven’t I got everything all planned?
Haven’t I got us a crooked lawyer?”
Will didn’t say anything.
“You’re a genius, William,” she said softly. “And geniuses need
people to protect them. Just promise me. Please?”
“All right, Jenny,” he said. “I promise.”
Jenny squealed with satisfaction. Raising herself up on her tiptoes,
she pecked him on the cheek. “You’re going to make a perfectly wonderful husband.”
“But I’m not going to Detroit just to sit around!” he added plaintively. “I want to show everyone at Tesla Industries what I can do!”
Jenny shrugged indifferently as she climbed back into her seat and
rearranged her duster. “I’m sure you can find plenty to show them that
doesn’t involve giving away your best invention right out of the gate.
You just have to play them along a little bit.”
Will looked at his watch. Old Rudge’s hour was over. He started
the car and put the controller into reverse. Power whooshed through
the Flume, like a distant breeze.
Both of them lost in thought, they drove on in silence, Dreadnought
Stanton’s brilliant green eyes following them blankly.
Chapter Three
The Wedding
S
tockton, located at the mouth of the San Joaquin Valley, was often
called “The Chicago of the West.” Will’s father had often sniffed at
this appellation and observed that one could quite accurately gauge
the intellectual smallness of any given city by the bigness of the city it
compared itself to. Will, however, loved Stockton—and not because of
its hotels or restaurants or shops or any of its other urban attractions.
He loved it because it was the most industrialized city in California,
a city of mills, factories, foundries and shipyards, all surrounding the
mighty man-made channel that led to the Pacific Ocean. Things were
made here.
Sometimes, Will would make Pask park out front of a factory just
so he could watch the activity going on around it—the bustling hive of
workers, the raw materials going in and finished materials coming out.
Pask, however, never had much patience for these protracted observations. He and Will came to Stockton to whoop it up, not to watch
the forward march of American industrial progress. He preferred
cheap whiskey, moving picture theaters, dances and vaudeville.
Will and Pask had come down at the beginning of the summer, on
Pask’s dime, to attend a big to-do—organized by the town’s business
elite—celebrating the opening of the brand new Hotel Stockton. With
his parents away in Europe, Pask had been invited to attend as the de
la Guerra family representative. He and Will had had an excellent
time swanking it up on the glassed-in rooftop garden, eating the boosters’ canapés and downing their liquor.
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As Jenny and Will drove along Pacific Avenue, the town seemed
to swell around them. They turned down El Dorado Street to Weber
Avenue, navigating around horse-drawn carts laden with goods
headed for the wharf. Will slowed the Baker as they passed the Hotel
Stockton, thinking its newness might impress her, but Jenny didn’t give
it a second look. She had her eyes peeled for the San Joaquin County
Courthouse a couple of blocks down—a massive building of white
stone with fat frondy palm trees planted out front and a heavy clock
tower cupola that seemed much too large for it, like a very big hat on
a very small man.
Will parked the Baker aslant the concrete curb. They climbed out
and hastily shed their motoring overcoats. As he stuffed his under the
seat, he was aware that Jenny was eyeing him critically.
“I told you to wear your best suit!”
“This is my best suit!” Will returned. That just seemed to alarm
her further, so he added, “and it’s just about new!” This was also true;
the suit had been obtained just a few months prior for his graduation
exercises. However, it had been ordered from a catalog, so it didn’t
really fit him properly. The trouser hems brushed his anklebones, revealing bright red home-knit socks, and the grease marked cuffs of his
blue twill workshirt jutted out beyond the jacket’s sleeves.
“Oh, it’ll just have to do.” Jenny fussed with his tie, then took his
arm. “Come on!”
Inside, the building smelled of varnish and marble and bureaucracy. The shield of the State of California was inlaid on the floor of
the main foyer, lit by light from the cupola above. The ringing officialness of it all made Will suddenly nervous.
“Hey Jenny, I don’t suppose you’ve researched what happens if
we’re caught?” He bent so he could speak low in her ear. “Getting
a marriage license under false pretenses, I mean. It’s probably just a
misdemeanor, right?”
“For me, anyway!” said Jenny, brightly. “For you, it could be a lot
worse. Especially since you’re intending to take me across state lines.
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I’m sure you’ve heard of the Mann Act? I’d advise you to keep any
immoral purposes to yourself.”
For not the first time, Will found that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with Jenny’s sense of humor. But he pressed his lips shut and
watched as she corralled a cleaning lady for directions. He thought
of Detroit. He needed to get to Detroit and this was going to get him
there. That was all that mattered.
The county clerk’s office, they were informed, was on the second floor. Jenny’s heels clicked and echoed as they climbed the wide
marble stairs. The building was mostly deserted this day after the
Thanksgiving holiday, but as Jenny had predicted, most of the offices
were open—not enthusiastically open, perhaps—but open.
The second floor, far less grandiose than the first, smelled of legalsized paper and red ink and wooden filing cabinets. The walls above
the half-paneling were painted the dull shade of green that municipal
governments seemed to order by the hogshead. They walked down a
hall lined with closed doors, pebbled glass windows gold-stenciled with
the names of the departments within, finally entering the door marked
“Licenses.”
The room was not large, and the dozens of tall wooden filing
cabinets that lined the walls made it seem even smaller. Behind a
counter that spanned the length of the room, a desk was centered, its
in-box stacked high. And behind that desk, a clerk—his feet propped
up, a cigarette in his mouth—deeply absorbed in the newest of the
Dreadnought Stanton serials. Will was beginning to feel like the
Sophos of the Stanton Institute was following him around.
“We’ve come for a marriage license,” said Will, his voice sounding
too loud in the silence. “We’d like to get married, please.”
The clerk took them both in at a glance, but said nothing.
“I’m twenty-one,” Will volunteered, probably too quickly.
“And I’m eighteen,” Jenny added, with similar haste. The clerk
ground out his cigarette and smiled at them both wearily. Reaching
behind his desk, he pulled out a handful of forms.
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“All right. These have to be filled out in triplicate. There’s a desk
with a pen and ink over there. Bring ‘em back to me when you’re done.
You have the twenty-eight bucks?”
Will nodded, glad that Jenny had thought to leave him the cash.
Having Jenny fish the money for their marriage license out from her
stocking garter might have made the clerk just the tiniest bit suspicious.
Together, they went over to a stand-up desk and filled out the papers using the dip pen that rested in an inkwell built into the table. It
was not a good pen, and Will’s hand was shaking slightly. He cursed as
he kept blotting the forms.
“Should we give them our real names?” Will whispered to Jenny.
He was getting flustered; embarking upon a course of misdemeanory
wasn’t his natural sphere of expertise.
“Of course we have to have our real names on there,” Jenny whispered back. “My lawyer may be crooked, but he’s not crooked enough
to get my mother’s estate released to ‘Susie Smith’!”
“All right, all right ... what’s your middle name?”
“Elaine.”
Will wrote their names side by side. It looked so formal: William
Wordsworth Edwards and Jennifer Elaine Hansen.
“William Wordsworth?” Jenny smirked. “Really?”
“Named after my father, same middle name and all,” said Will.
“It’s a family joke. Ma’am hates Wordsworth.”
Jenny shook her head. “Your family sure is strange.”
When they were done, they brought the papers back to the clerk,
Will trying to control the tremor in his hands. Perusing them, a slight
frown passed over the clerk’s face. He looked from Will to Jenny.
“You live up near Walnut Grove, and you live in San Francisco?”
His brow wrinkled. “But you two came all the way out here looking
for a license?”
Will and Jenny looked at each other. Jenny was the quickest.
“I have family in Stockton,” she said. “We’re visiting them.”
“You want to give me their name and address?” The clerk countered. Jenny gulped; the clerk narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t think so.” He
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paused, then looked hard at Will. “And I don’t suppose you brought
anyone to vouch for you? For your ages, particularly?”
Will’s whole body went hot, then cold.
“Well, no,” he said. “I mean, we’re both old enough. What would
we need someone to vouch for our ages for? The very idea!”
“I’ve got my Vanguard Girls Card!” Jenny offered, quickly fishing a pasteboard card out of her wallet. The Vanguard Girls was the
nation’s leading organization for the advancement of young women.
She showed it to the clerk. While it bore the stamped signature of the
organization’s founder—Mrs. Amanda Haynes Reader—it had nothing about Jenny’s age on it. Perhaps Jenny had hoped the card would
affirm the unquestionable moral rectitude of its possessor.
The clerk looked over the card—out of politeness merely. Then
he handed it back to her. “I’m afraid that doesn’t cut any ice with the
county, miss.”
“Sir, the truth of it is ...” Will leaned forward, tried to draw the
man into his confidence, “Well, we’ve got some explaining to do.”
The clerk looked at Will curiously but said nothing. Jenny also
looked at him, but he put his foot on top of hers and pressed down,
indicating that she should keep her mouth shut. Will leaned forward
further and lowered his voice to the barest whisper.
“My girl here is ... well, she’s in an embarrassing way, if you know
what I mean. And we’ve got to break it to her dad. If I can’t show him
a marriage license, he’s going to take after me with a shotgun.”
“And rightfully so,” the clerk said. But it was clear his interest had
been piqued. Will had often noticed that men who read dime novels
liked a little scandal.
“I want to do what’s right, sir,” Will said. “And I’d be much obliged
if you’d help us out in this matter.” Without quite knowing what he
was doing, or what the ramifications might be, Will reached into his
pocket for one of the bills Jenny had given him. He didn’t realize that
it was a hundred until he was sliding it across the counter, but by then
it was too late to take it back for something smaller. The clerk barely
glanced at the note before putting his hand over it.
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“All right, circumstances being what they are ... and it’s the holiday
... I’m going to grant you the certificate today.” He pulled out a stamp
and a pad and stamped all the documents, signing his name at the
bottom of each one. “You need to take these over to Judge Lawson
to get them officiated. He’ll be none too pleased to see you given he’s
probably nursing a hangover. He lives just off Fremont Square, a few
blocks up from here.” The clerk wrote out an address. “He’ll do the
service, and his housekeeper and her husband can be your witnesses.
Then you bring the signed papers back to me, and it’ll all be square.
But you’d better make it quick, I’m going home at four.”
Will glanced up at the large clock above the door; it was already
well past three. He touched the brim of his cap to the clerk and took
Jenny’s arm.
“C’mon!” he murmured to her. “If we want to be married today,
we’ll have to run!”
They dashed to the Judge’s house, a fine expensive home that
looked out onto a neatly groomed park. He was not, as the Clerk had
imagined, nursing a hangover; he had solved that painful inconvenience by getting drunk again. This meant that it took several tries for
Will and Jenny to explain the nature of their visit, and then additional
time to convince him that yes, it was indeed necessary to complete the
transaction even though, technically, the day might be considered a
holiday. Once the judge had been convinced of this, there was an additional amount of convolution when he learned that Will and Jenny
did not intend to solemnify their vows with a visit to a priest; as a
result, he insisted on reading some lines from the Bible to lend an air
of sanctity to the proceedings. Throughout all this, Will shifted nervously; Jenny, to her credit, stood calm and cool and collected, with the
air of one who believes that her plans will succeed. Will kept looking
at the clock on the mantel; it was ten minutes to four by the time the
judge pronounced them “man and wife.”
The housekeeper and her husband, who had served as witnesses,
invited Will to stay for cake and sherry, but there was no time to waste.
88
Offering quick thanks, they ran back to the county recorder’s office,
making it to the door just as the clerk was taking out his keys to lock it.
“Well, I guess you just made it!” The clerk took the papers from
them and looked them over. “I halfway didn’t think you’d get old Judge
Lawson to stay awake long enough to sign these.” He stepped inside
the office and stamped all three copies. Two of these he threw into the
teetering in-box to be dealt on Monday; the third copy he handed to
Will.
“There now, it’s official.” He took Will’s hand and shook it heartily.
“Congratulations, son.” He tipped his hat to Jenny. “I hope you’ll both
be very happy.”
Will and Jenny staggered out of the courthouse, both of them feeling a bit dazed. It was another warm afternoon, and the brightness
of the sunlight and the gentle hush of the palm trees that fronted
the courthouse made everything seem very strange. By mutual silent
agreement, they sat down on the courthouse’s marble steps, gazing
together at the license in Will’s hand. They both stared at the paper
for a long time, at its official red stamp and firm black-ink signatures.
Finally, Jenny took it from him, folded it neatly, and tucked it inside
her purse.
“Congratulations,” Will said to her.
“You too,” she returned.
“So now what?” he asked. “Straight to San Francisco? That’s over
eighty miles; it’s a pretty long drive to be starting this late in the day.”
“I’m tired,” said Jenny. “And I’m hungry.”
“We’re going to have to find someplace to sleep, then.” Will
stretched out on the stairs, putting his hands behind his head. “We
could just bum it.”
She stared at him in angry horror. “William Edwards, I am not
going to spend my wedding night sleeping in a public park!”
“Well then?” Will propped his head on his elbow and looked up at
her. “What’s it going to be?”
Jenny didn’t say anything, but chewed her lip anxiously. Every
detail of Miss Murison’s training was clearly militating against the
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89
very thought of checking into a hotel with a boy—even if they were
just friends. So, she was beginning to understand the temperature of
the soup she’d gotten herself into, was she? Her mostly-misplaced
virginal hesitancy gave Will a moment of unkind satisfaction. Sitting
there with her, in the failing light of a November evening, the scope
of their mutual impulsiveness was beginning to dawn on him too, and
he didn’t want to be the only one suffering from it. But then again, fair
was fair. He’d agreed to this as well, and they’d sworn a partnership
on a spit-shake. It was too late for second thoughts or recriminations.
“All right, how about this,” he spoke with careful casualness. “The
Hotel Stockton is just up the way, and it’s awful nice.”
Jenny nodded, but did not speak.
“We’ll get a couple of rooms, then we’ll go find dinner, and see a
show or something. There’s lots of places I know from coming here
with Pask. OK?” When Jenny didn’t answer, he gave her ankle a little
kick with the toe of his shoe. “C’mon, Scuff. You’re not going to go all
soft on me now, are you?”
She looked up at him, but still did not speak.
“There’s always something good at the Yosemite Theater,” he
said. “Last time I was here with Pask, we saw an old warlock who
could sorcel up fireworks that would make your eyes pop.”
Jenny remained silent.
“And look, I even got money. My own money, I mean. I’ll treat
you.” He dug the silver dollar out of his pocket, the one his father had
given him. He flipped it at her and she caught it, looked it over.
“Another birthday present from my father,” said Will. “So as you
can see, he’s not only a bastard, he’s a cheapskate too.”
Jenny turned the silver dollar over and over in her hand, examining it for a long time before she finally spoke.
“But don’t you understand, William? This is a wonderful present.”
She looked up at him. “Don’t you know what this is?”
Will shrugged. “It’s just an old silver dollar.”
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“No, it’s more than that. It’s more than just what a dollar can
buy, or the silver in it, or the beautiful engraving of Liberty enthroned
beneath thirteen stars. It’s a trade dollar.”
“So?”
She tilted her head and looked at him. “Haven’t you ever heard of
Gresham’s law, William?” It was a purely rhetorical question, for she
continued on immediately: “It refers to the tendency for bad money to
drive good money out of circulation. Gold and silver fluctuate in value
depending on how much of them are on the market at any given time.
In the 1870s, we had all those big silver strikes in Nevada, and silver
flooded the market. That made silver into bad money ... because there
was more supply than there was demand. Because there was less gold
and more silver, people spent silver and kept gold. Do you follow me?”
“Sure,” said Will, though he wasn’t entirely sure why they were
taking the journey in the first place.
“Now this coin,” Jenny continued, holding it up to the light, “was
created by a man named John Jay Knox—a San Francisco banker.
He knew that there was a great demand for silver coins in Asia, especially China. So Mr. Knox created these—purely for export, mind
you. Trade dollars.”
“But they started to show up in circulation here in the States,
because silver producers—who still had far too much silver on their
hands—could have their silver minted into trade dollars. And they
didn’t bother sending them overseas, they just dumped them into the
market. Over time, as more and more silver was found, and the price
of silver decreased, their value just kept going down. At one point, the
value had fallen so far you couldn’t get even eighty-six cents for this
dollar! And employers, wise to this opportunity for arbitrage, began
buying them at a discount and using them to pay their workers—
Gresham’s law at work!”
After this, she fell into a silent contemplation of the coin, so entranced that Will finally had to snap his fingers in front of her face to
get her attention. When her blue eyes rose to meet his, they were sharp
and bright.
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“So the point of your story,” he summarized, with a wry smile,
“is that I should like this coin because it was created out of greed and
became less and less valuable over time?”
“No,” she said. “I’m saying that you should respect it because it is
fascinating. Because it makes you think about everything money really
is. Money is the ability to do things—but only if you believe in it. And
more importantly, if other people believe in it. What makes a silver dollar with eighty-six cents of silver in it worth eighty-six cents ... when a
pennyworth of paper printed by the United States Treasury is worth
an actual dollar? Why will one give you more power to do things than
the other?”
“I have no idea,” Will said. “Hey, weren’t we going to go find a
hotel or something? Or are we going to spend our wedding night talking about John Jay Knox and the price of silver in China?”
Jenny grinned as she flipped the dollar back to Will.
“Don’t you dare spend that,” she said. “It’s a very special thing,
and someday you’ll be glad you have it.”
Will shrugged as he tucked the silver away. He didn’t believe her,
but it was nice to see Jenny smile again.
“Now, the Stockton sounds good to me,” she said. “But no magic.
It gives me the creeps. I want to go dancing.”
Will grinned. “Now that’s more like it, Mrs. Edwards.”
Chapter Four
Dancing with the Dorians
T
he Hotel Stockton rose up behind a long galleria of shops that ran
along Weber Avenue. It boasted the most modern accoutrements,
including refrigerated air, a glass-enclosed rooftop garden, and a fine
restaurant overlooking the deepwater channel to the Pacific.
When Will and Jenny went to see about rooms, Will was surprised
when the deskman greeted Jenny with warm recognition.
“Miss Hansen! How lovely to see you again! Are you in town to see
your sister?” The man looked sidelong at Will. “Is your father joining
you?”
“No,” said Jenny. “I’m here alone.” She paused, catching herself.
“I mean, I’m here with my husband.” She took Will’s arm and hugged
him close.”We’ve just been married today.”
Will thought the desk clerk would float to the ceiling, he was so
entranced by this notion. He actually clapped his hands together with
delight.
“Oh, how lovely! Many, many congratulations!” The man beamed
at them. “This calls for a celebration. I will put you in one of our best
suites.” He snapped his fingers for the bellhop, but the only luggage
they could produce was Jenny’s calfskin handgrip and Will’s leather
toolbag.
They and their meager belongings were shown upstairs to what
was certainly one of the hotel’s most impressive suites. There were
three rooms—sitting room, bedroom, bath, all enormous. Like the rest
of the hotel, they were done up in the old mission style, with heavy
fumed-oak furniture upholstered in soft sueded leather, creamy stucco
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walls accented with bright glazed tile, and hammered bronze light
fixtures with mica shades. Along one wall, behind curtains of silk,
tall French doors opened onto a broad pillared balcony. No sooner
had the bellhop left than a porter arrived, bearing a bottle of French
champagne in a tub of ice and two crystal flutes on a silver tray. “With
the hotel’s compliments,” he said, tipping his red cap smartly after
he’d laid these out.
Will sank down onto one of the leather sofas. “Is that it? Or should
I be expecting the mayor to walk through the door with the key to
the city?” He paused, watching as Jenny unpinned her hat. “Call it a
guess, but I think you’ve stayed here before.”
Jenny laid her hat aside, setting the hatpin neatly atop it. “I wasn’t
lying when I said I had family in Stockton. My sister Claire is here, at
the Stockton State Hospital, just up California Street. Dad and I have
been here a half dozen times since the hotel opened, visiting her.”
She tried to open the bottle of champagne, but the cork was too slippery and her hands were shaking too much. Will took it from her and
buried it back in the ice.
“Nix on the booze,” he said. “We should eat something first.”
“Right.” Jenny glanced at herself in a nearby pier mirror, made a
face. “I’m going to get cleaned up.”
While Will waited, he cursorily examined the appointments of
the room—lifting a knick-knack or two—then stepped out onto the
balcony, leaning on the rail to look out over McLeod Lake and the
deepwater channel beyond. As he was gazing at the bustling commercial piers and heavy freight steamers, an idea struck him. The room
also had a telephone. Hurrying back inside, he picked up the receiver
and spoke to the hotel operator. She said that, yes, she could certainly
get him a line to Detroit. It would be well past dinnertime there, Will
knew, but Mr. Waters had always said that Mr. Grigoriyev kept odd
hours.
Pressing the smooth cool rubber of the receiver against his cheek,
Will listened silently as the operator contacted several of her sisters
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across the United States, intricately negotiating a connection across
many different exchanges.
Finally, heart pounding, he heard the cracking, distant, quiet sound
of a deep, basso “This is Grigory Grigoriyev speaking.” Will waited for
the operator at the far end of the line:
“You have a call from California, from a Mr. William Edwards.
Connecting you now.”
Will was about to say “hello” when the voice on the other end of
the line boomed with expansive warmth:
“William Edwards! I thought we would never hear from you!
Waters has spoken so very highly of your skills.”
“I’m glad to speak to you as well,” Will said, feeling a rush of
relief at the warmth of the man’s greeting. “I wanted to telephone and
apologize for the delay. I would like to accept the apprenticeship you
have offered me. I can come to Detroit immediately.”
“This is wonderful news. You certainly are not planning to come
by train?”
Will—who, up to that point, had been thinking only about getting
to San Francisco and Jenny’s crooked lawyer—hadn’t given more than
a passing thought to how he was going to get to Detroit. But of course
he’d have to take a train. How else could he be expected to get there?
He was so puzzled by Grigoriyev’s statement that he stammered:
“Well, I do have an automobile,” he said. “It runs on a new type
of power source of my own design. It could make it all the way to
Detroit.”
A sound of mildly scoffing indulgence crackled across the line.
“Yes, Waters has told me about this ‘Otherwhere Flume’ you have
been working on. I must remind you, Mr. Edwards, continuous power
delivery is hardly revolutionary. It has been around for decades.”
“No it hasn’t,” Will blurted—then, realizing how impertinent it
must have sounded, added: “Not really continuous power delivery, I
mean. There’s always been the Connection Drop Problem.”
There was a silence over the line.
95
“No one has found a way around the Connection Drop Problem,”
said Grigoriyev.
“I have,” said Will. He let the silence hang. He’d made a promise
to Jenny not to reveal more, and, besides that, he liked giving this man
something to look forward to.
“If that is the truth, then it won’t be long before you’re not an apprentice anymore, and are rather a highly paid employee,” Grigoriyev
cleared his throat—a rough, rattling sound over the long-distance
lines. “You must come at once and bring this Flume of yours. But
don’t bother with the automobile, you’ll find we’ve got plenty of those
in Detroit.”
“We can be there in a few days,” Will said.
“We?” Grigoriyev must have said the word quite loudly, for it
crackled over the line like fireworks. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”
“Well, I won’t be coming alone.” Will fingered the thick silkwrapped receiver cord. “I’m ... I’m bringing my wife.”
“Wife?” Grigoriyev bleated. “Mr. Edwards, you never mentioned
anything about a wife!”
Will didn’t quite know what to say, so he said nothing.
“Didn’t Mr. Waters explain our position on privacy to you?”
Grigoriyev said. “Haven’t you read the terms of the apprenticeship
contract? It is a strict matter of Tesla Industries policy, dictated by
Mr. Tesla himself. Our apprentices live on the Compound, in private
dormitories, and must uphold the strictest modes of conduct and sanitation. You are simply not allowed have a wife!”
“I can’t very well leave her behind, Mr. Grigoriyev!” Will suddenly
realized that in this situation that would be exactly what Grigoriyev
would demand he do. He covered with a quick lie: “She has no family
out here and no one to stay with. She must come with me.”
There was another long pause. Finally, Grigoriyev spoke again.
“I’m sure this is a very expensive call for you, Mr. Edwards, so for
the sake of your wallet we will not discuss the matter any further. I
will simply have to find some way to make this right.” He didn’t sound
very happy about it. “Mr. Edwards, please keep in mind that at Tesla
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Industries we put a priority on secrecy and discretion—as well as a
pure, sanitary mode of existence. Your wife will have to respect that. I
take it she is ... well-behaved?”
“Of course, Mr. Grigoriyev!” said Will, putting some outrage into
the answer. Grigoriyev made a sound that might have been a grunt of
satisfaction or disbelief. There was a brief silence.
“She’s not fat, is she?” Grigoriyev asked.
“Not at all,” Will said, and his answer must have been a bit warm
because Grigoriyev then asked, with an even more intense note of
alarm, “For God’s sake, you’re not fat, are you?”
“No, sir. I’m not fat.”
“Chubby at all?”
“No, I’m a perfectly normal size.” Will heard Grigoriyev release a
long sigh of relief.
“Thank goodness. Mr. Tesla might have overlooked it, given your
brilliance, but he wouldn’t have liked it. This will make things much
easier. Now, you must not take the train. It is far too dirty and slow. We
must have you here immediately. Where are you now? Don’t you live
somewhere near San Francisco?”
“I’m in Stockton right now,” said Will. His head was spinning from
the speed at which the man changed subjects, and the oddness of the
subjects themselves. “But I will be in San Francisco on Monday. I have
... business there.”
“Excellent. After your business is done, go to the University of
Berkeley College of Mechanics. There’s a graduate student in the
physics department who goes by ‘Massy.’ Ask for him. He will send
you through the Dimensional Subway.”
Will’s heart leapt. He’d heard about the Dimensional Subways.
They were still experimental, but it was said that they had the potential
to completely replace the old-fashioned magically-powered transportation portals called Haälbeck Doors—the use of which, for members
of the “Malmantic Generation,” was an invitation to a sickening bout
of magical allergy. A vast network of Haälbeck doors still existed, but
97
they could be used safely only by older businessmen, men born before
The Great Change, whose ability to use magic was unimpaired.
The older generation’s use of Haälbeck Doors (not to mention
a million other kinds of magic) was the source of great hard-feeling
among their younger counterparts. Up-and-coming businessmen
begrudged their seniors their access to swift, easy magical transportation across the country. Some even went so far as to deem it a
“Mantic Trust.” There had been increasingly loud demands that the
Government take steps to bust this trust, to “level the playing field” for
the younger professionals.
Will couldn’t care less about the political posturing—he left that
stuff to Argus—but he knew that Dimensional Subways and other
scientific advancements like it were going to be critical in settling the
issue. Will was thrilled at the prospect of seeing it in action.
“That will be fine,” said Will, but Grigoriyev had already rung off
without a goodbye.
Will gently replaced the receiver in its cradle, simultaneously
elated and disquieted. He hadn’t even imagined that the presence of
Jenny, playing the role of wife, might give Tesla Industries a second
thought about him. Gee, maybe he should have read the apprenticeship
contract more carefully. But all that writing had been so tiny.
What if they decided that they couldn’t take a married apprentice
at all? That it was too hazardous to their jealously guarded security?
Or worse, a threat to their “pure, sanitary mode of existence” (whatever the hell that meant.) Wouldn’t that be a piece of irony? Just like
that story where the wife sold her hair to buy the husband a watch fob
when the husband had already sold his watch to buy her a comb. Will
never had liked that story.
And then there was the fact that Jenny had actually started to
take an interest in his work. She had made him promise to patent his
Flume! What would Mr. Grigoriyev think of that kind of meddling?
Well, no use worrying about it. He was a married man now, even
if the role was purely fictional. And his purely fictional wife wanted to
go dancing.
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It being the Friday night after a holiday, there was no shortage of
dances. After a good hearty dinner, Will took Jenny to a place he knew,
one he and Pask had haunted on many a Saturday night—the Tivoli
Concert Hall on El Dorado.
The admission fee was twenty-five cents for a couple. The inside of
the dance hall was cavernous and echoing, and had always reminded
Will of a gymnasium. At one end of the hall was a small stage, where
a ten-piece ensemble played marches and two-steps and slow drags.
Dozens of couples were already dancing under a ceiling hung
with small electric bulbs inside colorful Chinese paper lanterns. Even
more couples milled above the dance floor, on the darkened mezzanine balcony, sipping soft drinks judiciously made hard by the addition
of flask-carried liquor.
Jenny gazed around herself with wonder as they entered. Looking
down at her, Will felt a sudden thrill of pride. He’d never come here
with a pretty girl on his arm. All in all, it was a much nicer feeling than
he’d expected. He could get used to this.
“You’ve never been here before?” He asked her, before immediately realizing what a dumb question it was. Jenny said she’d been to
Stockton with her dad, and he certainly wouldn’t have taken her out
dancing.
“I’ve never been to a place like this at all,” Jenny breathed, wideeyed. “The girls at my school all try to keep up with the newest steps ...
but none of us have ever actually gone to a dance hall!” She watched
the dancers swirling across the polished wood floor, the girls in frothy
white gowns of embroidered linen and lace. She looked down at herself ruefully. “Gosh, I’m not even dressed right.”
“It won’t matter once we’re moving.” Will pulled her toward the
floor. “Come on.”
They had to push their way through to get a good place, but
they were soon moving together smoothly, her hand on his shoulder,
his hand on her waist. Will had an extensive experience of female
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waists—in the context of the dance floor, anyway—and he discovered
that Jenny’s was comparatively very fine; firm, smooth, and warm.
“You must come here a lot,” she said. “The coat-check girls all
know you. I heard them giggling.”
Will grinned ruefully. “Pask and I have given them plenty to giggle
about.” When Jenny blushed at the implication, he added, quickly,
“Not like that! I mean, we just tease them, that’s all. Give them a hard
time.” Damn it, that was the wrong choice of words. He felt his face
getting red too.
“I have simply got to get some new clothes.” Jenny quickly changed
the subject, looking not at Will’s face but instead at a particularly lovely
gown spinning past them. “I haven’t a stitch beside what I’m wearing.”
Will’s face remained red, and he said nothing. Jenny looked at her
hand, resting on the breast of his suit jacket. “You’ll need new things
too,” she mused.
Will shrugged. “I don’t need much. Besides, I think I’ll be getting
a stipend from Tesla Industries eventually. Maybe I can hold out until
then.” He struggled to recall his diligent skimming of the apprenticeship contract—hadn’t there been something in there about money?
“We’ll figure it out,” she said, giving his chest a confident pat.
“Meanwhile, I’ll just keep track of how much I spend on you. We’ll
settle it all up when we get divorced. Don’t worry, I’ll give you easy
terms.”
“Oh, really?” Will smiled down at her. “I hope you’ll keep in mind
that I’m providing you a service as well. Keeping you safe from mashers, showing you the sights of Stockton, driving the car. There’s got to
be some value in that.”
“With a car like Pask’s, you’re virtually ensuring you never get put
out of a job, William,” Jenny smirked.
“Why do you always call me William?”
“It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but everyone else always calls me Will. Or sometimes Bill.”
Jenny made a face. “I don’t like ‘Will’,” she said. “It makes you
sound stubborn and perverse. Or like a legal document associated with
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death. And Bill is even worse. It makes you sound unpaid and unwelcome, something to be dodged. I like William. It’s a beautiful name.
Though you’ll notice I don’t include Wordsworth in that estimation.”
“And what about ‘Edwards’?” He said, softly. It seemed a more
serious question than the ones that had gone before.
Her face was impassive. “I’ll be ‘Hansen’ again, eventually.”
“But you’ll never be ‘Miss’ again. You’ll be a divorcee. Doesn’t that
bother you? You act like you don’t care.”
Jenny shook her head sharply, forestalling further conversation.
And Will realized that it did bother her, and she did care, but while
she’d planned out the tactical logistics to a nicety, the emotional logistics had yet to be worked out. And until such time as they could be, she
was determined not to think about them at all.
They slowly made their way off the floor after the song ended. It
was hot, and the band was launching straight into an up-tempo castle
walk—a popular favorite—and a stampede of couples rushing onto
the floor made it hard to pass. As they were moving toward the refreshment counter, they passed a cluster of very distinctive young people.
Each one wore clothing of unbroken black—the boys even wore black
shirtfronts and black collars and black ties. But it wasn’t their bizarre
outfits that distinguished them; it was their sickly, sallow complexions, seemingly smudged with purple bruises. The girls emphasized
this ugly contrast by heavily ringing their eyes with black kohl. They
smoked black cigarettes in ebony holders, blowing the smoke upwards
in elegant arcs. Jenny stared back at them as she and Will stood in line
for drinks.
“Dorians,” she whispered to him.
Will nodded, sparing the group an amused look. The black-clad
youths were devotees of the British writer Oscar Wilde, specifically
his famous Lippincott’s serial, “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” They
fancied themselves living the American version of La Vie Boheme. To
achieve the dark, wan, sickly look that they seemed to associate with
that Bohemian life, they used—or rather misused—magic. The special cigarettes they smoked—”Golden Bat” brand, which came in an
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exquisite green and gold package—had been specially charmed to
have a variety of effects on the smoker. They were as stimulating as the
cocaine that came in medicine bottles, and they bestowed a distinctive
glamour on the hair and eyes, lending both a dramatic, fascinating
gleam. The final effect derived from the first two; the charm placed
upon the tobacco was sufficient to induce the mildest form of magical
allergy—too little to cause any real harm, but poisonous enough to
give the users an “interesting” pallor.
“They’re all over the place in San Francisco,” Jenny’s tone was
intensely disapproving. “They’re like a plague.”
“And now they’ve spread to Stockton, apparently,” smirked Will.
“Can Fresno be far behind?”
But Jenny clearly didn’t think they were funny. She stood glaring at
the Dorians so hard that eventually one of them—a girl—noticed and
raised a plucked eyebrow, and blew a thin plume of glowing smoke
in her direction. The purplish smoke curled in the shape of a bat—a
hallmark of the expensive cigarettes.
“People shouldn’t use magic that way,” said Jenny, and this time
instead of whispering she said it loudly, so her voice would carry. “It’s
not healthy, and it’s an insult to everyone who’s really suffered and—
oh, it just makes me mad!” Will might have had to break up some kind
of fight had Jenny not turned and began shoving her way toward the
door. Will didn’t catch up with her until she was already retrieving her
canvas duster from one of the giggling coat-check girls.
“Come on, Scuff. They’re just a bunch of poseurs. What’s got you
so upset?”
“I’m tired,” she said, flatly. “I want to go back to the hotel.”
When they got back to the hotel, however, Jenny’s mood had not
improved. She tore the hairpins out of her hair and slammed them
down on the side table.
“As if the Black Flu epidemics were just some kind of ... joke!” she
muttered, as she went to her grip for a boar’s-hair brush. She sat on the
edge of an ottoman and began to brush her hair; the action seemed to
calm her. “Some kind of fashion statement! Almost a million people, all
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over the world ... dead! And that doesn’t even take into account all the
millions more who have suffered. Mothers, and fathers, and—” she closed
her mouth and brushed with a vengeance. Will sat on a chair watching
her. Her hair gleamed in the electric lamplight.
“And your family isn’t helping matters any!” she said, out of the blue.
Will raised his hands, startled. “What has my family got to do with
the Black Flu? I lost a sister to it myself, you know!”
“Your brother Argus,” she hissed. “California’s Man of the
People—he based his whole campaign on an anti-immunization
platform!”
Will groaned. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to discuss
less than politics—especially his brother’s politics. But the question
of mandatory Panchrest immunization had divided the nation—and
it was true, Argus’ passionate partisanship on the issue had swept him
to victory.
The Panchrest—the life-saving medication that had halted the
Black Flu epidemics—was able to stop the deadly allergy because it
blocked the natural magical channels in the human body. It “gummed
up the works,” so to speak. And the effect was irreversible. Those who
took the Panchrest were rendered immune to magical allergy—but
also unable to work any kind of magic at all.
This was a matter of little concern to the members of the
Malmantic Generation; since the strange generational allergy was
discovered, it was clear that magical practice was outside the reach of
humanity’s new breed. However, there was the question of the Old
Users, and the disquieting advantage they enjoyed. Their ability to use
magic without impairment was an ever-increasing source of concern.
And so, some had begun to argue that the Panchrest should be
administered, preventively, to every United States citizen—young and
old. Supporters trumpeted the scheme of mandatory immunization
as a critical necessity to public health—but their deeper motivations
were just as clear. Mandatory immunization would bust the “Magical
Trust.” Older businessmen would have no magical advantage over
their younger comrades. No longer could they take advantage of
103
Haälbeck Doors, or a hundred other little charms that they currently
employed to their mercantile advantage.
The political faction Argus had aligned himself with—the AntiImmunizers—argued that the Government had no place interfering
with the ability of the older generation to conduct their business.
They argued that legislating such a fundamental rearrangement of
the human system was unconstitutional. And they argued (probably
most persuasively, in Will’s opinion) that as the Panchrest had been
developed very quickly, in response to the national emergency of the
Black Flu epidemics, that no one really knew what its long-term effects
might be.
But it was clear that Jenny didn’t share any of these concerns. The
fire in her eyes was as clear a sign of that as if she were wearing an
“Immunization Now!” button on her lapel.
“If those ... poseurs ... were forced to take the shot, they wouldn’t
be able to flaunt their bad behavior,” she said. “Your brother is on the
wrong side of that issue. I tried to get him to see it on our drive down,
but he didn’t want to listen.”
So that’s what Lillie had meant by “full of opinions.” That must
have been one heck of a ride down from San Francisco. If there was
one thing Will knew about “California’s Man of the People” it was
that he had no interest in listening to opinions that weren’t his own.
Will couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Jenny bracing Argus
on the issue, and this fanned the flames of Jenny’s annoyance. She
threw her hairbrush back into the grip and stormed into the bedroom,
unbound hair streaming behind her in a glorious halo.
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he called after her back, unnecessarily.
“Darn right you will,” she said, slamming the bedroom door.
Chapter Five
Ben’s Letter
E
ven though the couches in the suite were deeply cushioned, Will was
too tall to sleep on any of them comfortably. At around 3 a.m., he
gave up the attempt and stretched, resigning himself to wakefulness.
He went out onto the balcony and looked over the channel. The waning moon cast a pallid light over the water, and despite the late hour,
barges were being loaded to make the trip down river to the Port of
San Francisco.
On the sidewalk below, he saw a group of young people walking together, heading home. They moved in a somnolent procession, as if on
their way to a funeral—it was the same group of Dorians who’d made
Jenny so mad at the dance hall. One of the girls was shading herself
from the moonlight with a black parasol. It was a ridiculous, pretentious display—but also strangely evocative. And for some reason, it
reminded Will suddenly of the mysterious letter from his brother Ben.
Hurrying back inside, Will went to the hall closet where he’d hung
his suit jacket. From the pocket, he retrieved the copy of The Warlock’s
Curse with Ben’s letter tucked inside. Sitting down at the leather-covered writing desk, he withdrew the letter, spreading it out flat.
A single sheet of stationery. He read the words on it again:
Dreadnought Stanton 32: “The Warlock’s Curse.” Page 153.
Will flipped through the book to 153, back to the illustration of the
magical sigil. He’d thought about that sigil during the drive down, trying to recall what role it had played in the book. All he could remember was that it was part of the magic the villain had used to unlock a
Ben’s Letter
105
magical artifact—a journal or a box or something like that. And in the
book, for the magic to work, the sigil had to be traced in blood.
Will carefully read the relevant sections of text, and they confirmed his recollection. He sat back in his chair, annoyed. Clearly, it
was Ben’s intention that he trace the sigil in blood, and that would
unlock some kind of hidden text. Which might seem very nifty if he
were still twelve—but really? First Ben didn’t send him letters at all,
and now that he did, he had to bleed to read it? Besides that, Will had
nothing to draw blood with.
Sighing heavily, he looked around the room, and noticed Jenny’s
hat sitting on the small side table. He took the hatpin from it and tested
its edge; it was quite sharp. He winced as he jabbed it into his thumb.
Squeezing a drop of blood, he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, then carefully sketched the sigil on the page.
No sooner had he finished than the blood-streaks faded, and letters appeared, shimmering as if they’d been written in silver ink:
Dear Will, the
first line read. Happy birthday.
Will squinted, pain needling through his head. The words were
small and cramped, and they seemed to waver like heat rising on a hot
summer day.
Sorry to have to subject you to a bit of unpleasant magic, but this
stationery I borrowed from the Sophos’ office was the best way for
me to ensure that this message wouldn’t be intercepted.
First of all, I want to say that I have always enjoyed your letters. Yes,
I did get them. And I’m sorry I never wrote back.
Will hmphed. That was a good way to start, anyway.
I would have written you back if I could have, but it was impossible.
I made a promise to Father and Mother and Uncle Royce. And honestly, it’s not the promise I care about so much, but if they knew I
broke it ... well, you never would have heard from me at all. So I had
to wait until the time was right, when I knew you’d be ready to break
off from them for good and all.
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Your last letter, written after your argument with Father, told me
everything I needed to know on that score. Even though you don’t
really know me, little brother, I know you. I know that you’re going
to Detroit, I know that you won’t let anything stop you. And I just
wanted to say that I will help you any way I can. Father has no right
to stop you. It’s your life.
Just reading the words lifted Will’s spirits. It was the only morsel of
encouragement he’d received from anyone in his family, and he hadn’t
realized just how sweet it would be.
Now, if you need traveling money, Father always keeps a few hundred dollars in cash at the back of the bottom left drawer in the desk
in his study. If don’t feel right about stealing from him, rest assured
that you need take only enough to get you to Detroit. I’ve opened
an account there on your behalf, at the National Bank. I’ve put in all
the money I can spare. It will be enough to get you set up. I will send
more when I can.
Will flipped over the page.
Now, I’m sorry to say this, but don’t for one minute think that this is
going to be easy.
Will took a deep breath, swallowed. He looked out the window for
a moment, letting darkness soothe his eyes before continuing on.
You know as well as I do that Father and Mother don’t like being crossed. They will spare no effort to bring you home, if for no
other reason than they told you that you couldn’t go. So be careful.
Remember, Mother has eyes all over the country. She hears from
every one of those damn girls she has ever taken in. And you know,
she’s taken in a lot of girls over the years. And it’s not just her girls,
it’s her girls who know other girls. For God’s sake, just watch out for
girls in general, won’t you?
Will smiled. He thought of Jenny’s hair, how it had flowed behind
her as she stormed off to the bedroom. He didn’t need his brother to
tell him to watch out for girls.
Now, the good news is that Tesla Industries will protect you. They
value secrecy above everything. Once you are safely settled with
Ben’s Letter
them, they’ll keep Father and Mother at bay. So just get to Detroit
and you’ll be fine.
I will come and see you when I can. For now, I can only write. One
page every night, front and back—every night the charm resets,
allowing me to write you something new. This paper is the safest
way for me to communicate with you, but I’m afraid you mustn’t
write me back. Communication that goes out using the Sophos’
stationery is not monitored (for it is assumed that the Sophos’
letters do not need to be) but he is alerted when new messages
arrive—and I guess I don’t need to tell you it wouldn’t go particularly
well for me if he were to find out I was using his office supplies to
communicate with my long-lost baby brother.
Running out of room. One sheet just isn’t enough, but it will have to do.
Be sure to read this letter again after midnight.
Your brother always,
Ben
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Chapter Six
Claire
W
ill woke the next morning to the sound of Jenny bustling around
softly. She was holding her hat on her head, looking around with
annoyance.
“What on earth has become of my hatpin?” she muttered. Will sat
up slowly, muscles cramped from his resigned surrender to the longest
of the too-short couches. Reaching over to the writing desk, he retrieved the hatpin and handed it to her guiltily, first checking to make
sure it wasn’t streaked with blood. She gave him a curious look as she
took it, but said nothing.
“Are you going out?” Will asked.
“I won’t be coming back to California for a long time.” She pinned
the hat to her head, then checked its angle in the mirror. “So I’m going
over to the hospital. I’m going to say goodbye to my sister.”
Will rubbed sleep from his eyes. “I’ll drive you over if you like.”
“It’s not far by streetcar,” said Jenny, clearly intending to put him
off. But then, an idea seemed to hit her. He could fairly see it forming
behind her eyes. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“Why would you want me to come with you?”
“You ... you might be able to help me with something very important.” Her eyes were now fairly blazing with inspiration, and she
looked quite resolved. “Yes, you simply must come. But we will take
the streetcar ... I don’t want to drive up in front of the hospital in
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Pask’s broken-down old machine.” She placed a hand on his wrist.
“Will you come? Please?”
Will had originally thought that her outing would be the perfect
opportunity for him to sneak into the bedroom and get some proper
sleep. But a hand on the wrist! Who could resist that? He found himself recalling what his brother had written him about girls.
Walking down Weber Avenue toward the streetcar stop, Will pondered what he knew about Jenny’s sister Claire. He knew that while the
Black Flu killed many babies outright, in some children the mutations
progressed slowly, deforming and disfiguring the victim over many
years. What little he knew of Claire’s particular situation had been
relayed by Laddie, who had a twisted fondness for such dark gossip.
“Claire is an absolute hideous wreck,” Laddie had said, in the sinuous whisper he reserved for the most shocking horrors. “Have you ever
seen pictures of the Elephant Man? Well, imagine him all black and
oily and covered with oozing sores. She can’t breathe without some
kind of bellows to inflate her lungs. They keep her locked up and feed
her raw meat every few days. She tears it apart with her black razor
fangs. I imagine it’s quite grisly.”
Will certainly didn’t believe the part about the raw meat or the
fangs. His technological interest had been piqued, however, by the
bellows system Laddie had described. He’d been quite interested in
knowing how such a system would work. Would it be automatic, or
triggered by the victim’s own muscle impulses? Now, however, walking
with Jenny, his own morbid curiosity made him feel ashamed. He’d
never thought of Claire as a person, just a monstrosity. He certainly
hadn’t thought of her as someone’s sister. But she was Jenny’s sister,
and Jenny loved her.
The Stockton State Hospital was large and white, with eyebrow
arches and two deep enfolding wings. As they walked through the
main gate, Will noticed the tangle of electrical wires that ran into the
building from overhead poles. A system of bellows like the one Laddie
had mentioned would certainly require electrical power, multiplied by
110
however many patients were kept alive on them. It struck him that if
the machines ran on electricity, he could surely power one of them
with his Otherwhere Flume. It might be an improvement over being
tied down in a hospital. Patients might be able to go home and live
with their families.
“You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to,” said Jenny, breaking through his thoughts. But Will was really interested now. What if
he could find a way to improve the lives of people like Claire?
“I might as well,” he said.
At the reception desk in the lobby, they were greeted by a sister in
a simple religious habit of charcoal gray, the large red cross around
her neck the only spot of color. As Jenny spoke to her quietly, Will idly
gazed at the pair of pictures hanging on the wall behind the reception
desk—a picture of a very old man hung next to that of a much younger one. Will recognized them both immediately. The older man was
Brother Scharfe, famous as the founder of the Scharfian Fellowship—a
strictly observant religious sect best known for its operation of sanatoriums for the “Cursed” (as the church so charmingly termed the
survivors of the Black Flu) all over the United States. Despite their
tendency toward unkind terminology, they were the undisputed experts in the treatment of victims of the Black Flu, and as such had
been contracted to run many State Hospitals, especially those with
large numbers of long-term patients.
The younger man in the second picture was even more famous. He
was Brother Scharfe’s successor, Brother Phleger. One could hardly
pick up a newspaper or watch a newsreel without catching a glimpse
of his face—a smooth, handsome, muscularly-Christian face, strikingly disfigured by a sickle-shaped black blot across his cheek—the
legacy of a childhood bout of Black Flu supposedly overcome by his
precocious faith in Christ’s redemption. A fiery polemicist, he was at
the forefront of the Mandatory Immunization movement. He regularly thundered from the pulpit on the necessity of the legislation to
America’s continued claim to be a Christian nation.
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111
And even if one didn’t read newspapers or watch newsreels, one
could hardly miss seeing his uniquely-marked face on the hundreds of
thousands of little religious tracts carried by adherents to back doors
all across the United States. Will’s family’s home was a prime target
for such missionaries, for it was well-known in their area that Mrs.
Edwards was an unapologetic, still-practicing witch.
Ma’am never could abide these black-coated Bible-thumpers.
While she was genuinely nice to anyone who came to her door looking
for a handout—overly so, some might say—she would chase Scharfians
off with a broom.
“Come on,” said Jenny, taking his arm, as the sister rose to escort
them to Claire’s room. Will was surprised at how tightly Jenny gripped
him.
If Will was worried about being too obvious in his interest in the
bellows that kept Claire alive, he found that he needn’t have been.
Even someone with no interest in machinery at all would have found
it impossible not to stare.
It was enormous, and—in Will’s instant estimation—far louder
than it needed to be. It would be dead easy to muffle the sound of
the chugging air-pump at the mechanism’s heart. But perhaps the
Scharfians didn’t believe in such finicky niceties. As Will had expected,
thick electrical cords looped down from the ceiling to the machine—
but they weren’t even hard-wired in, they’d been screwed, via some
kind of adaptor, into a light fixture. It was a very inefficient and inelegant setup—not to mention a fire hazard.
The machine was so huge it entirely dwarfed the small human figure, wrapped in a colorful knitted afghan, who sat huddled beneath it.
“Good morning, Claire!” Jenny yelled as she briskly crossed the
room. Adding to the oppressive clamor was the distorted screech of
organ music from a wireless Teslaphone, which had been turned up
to maximum volume to contend with the sound of the bellows. Jenny
went over to the tall wooden cabinet and snapped the Teslaphone off,
muttering something Will certainly couldn’t hear. Then, going to her
sister, Jenny folded the blanket back from Claire’s head. Will froze.
112
For once, Laddie hadn’t been exaggerating.
Claire was so deformed by bony protrusions that her form was
only vaguely human. Her blackened skin was encrusted with oozing
lesions, the most severe of which were swathed in clean white bandages. Her throat was monstrously distorted not only by the ravages
of the Black Flu, but by a silver tube that had been surgically inserted
into her throat. The tube was connected by a flexible hose to the large
bellows that rose and lowered with a mechanical clack and hiss. Her
whole body seemed to distend and contract as the bellows worked her
lungs for her.
Will knew he shouldn’t stare, but he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t even
Claire’s deformities that transfixed him. It was her left hand. Somehow,
her left hand alone had escaped the ravages of the Black Flu. It was a
beautiful hand, absolutely unblemished, neatly manicured, mockingly
perfect.
Lifting his eyes, Will realized that Claire was looking at him. Her
eyes were sunken and red-rimmed, gummed with thick yellow ooze.
Jenny, who had fetched a washcloth and some water from a nearby
table, began wiping the crusted matter from her sister’s eyes, her movements both tender and matter-of-fact.
“There you are, now you’ll be able to see a bit better. Let me get
your tapper.”
The “tapper”, as Jenny called it, was a small self-contained device
with a single bakelite key on a lever of brass. No sooner had Jenny
positioned Claire’s smooth perfect hand over it than her sister began
tapping rapidly. A speaker on the device issued a series of loud tones,
both long and short. Will recognized it immediately—a Morse machine. Learning the code had been a fad at his school, especially with
boys who aspired to a career in the military.
You’re back soon, Claire tapped.
“Yes, I wanted to see you,” Jenny said. She did not translate for
Will, and Will wasn’t sure whether it was because she wanted the conversation to remain private, or whether she didn’t think it was worth
relaying.
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Dad with you?
“Not this time.”
Who’s he?
If Will hadn’t known Morse code, he wouldn’t have had any idea
that they were talking about him; Jenny did not look his way and
Claire did not move, except the tiny motions of her finger.
Jenny stood, returning to Will’s side to take his arm. He hadn’t
realized he was standing quite so far back in the room until she pulled
him forward. “This is William Edwards. William, this is my sister
Claire.”
Will nodded to Claire. Claire swiftly tapped:
He needs a new suit.
Jenny smirked, but did not comment. “I’ve told you about him,
haven’t I?”
Boy you liked once, yes?
Jenny blushed, but didn’t look at Will. “He’s an old friend,” she
said, and released his arm quickly. Will stuffed his hands in his pockets and retreated.
Why are you here?
“To say goodbye.” Jenny took a deep breath, straightened. “I’m
going away. I’m finally going to do it. I’m going to take care of what
we talked about.”
There was a long silence, filled only by the noise of the bellows.
Finally, Claire tapped one short word.
No.
“Claire, you know I have to at least try. And don’t worry, I’m going to make sure that the operation doesn’t—”
No.
Will had a strange feeling that Claire would have screamed the
word if she could have. Something about the way the bellows revved
suddenly, as if reacting to sudden tension in her body.
Jenny sank to her knees before her sister, and spoke very softly.
“Claire, I can do this. I have to do this.”
No. Claire tapped again. And again, and again. No. No. No.
114
She was still tapping it when someone entered the room. Jenny
stood, turned quickly. She was white as a sheet, Will saw.
“Miss Hansen!” The older woman who had entered the room
wore the white coat of a doctor over a neatly tailored skirt. “I didn’t
think we’d see you back so soon!”
“Good morning, Dr. Smyth,” said Jenny, putting all of Miss
Murison’s haughtiness into the greeting. “Yes, I didn’t expect to be
back so soon either. But the situation is quite unusual. I have been
married, and I have brought my husband with me.”
“Husband?” Dr. Smyth blinked. She looked at Will, her eyes appraising him. “Why, your father didn’t mention—well! It’s a pleasure
to meet you, Mr—”
“Edwards,” he said. “William Edwards.”
“I am Dr. Margaret Smyth, Superintendent of the Hospital. I am
also Claire’s personal physician.”
“My husband and I made a special trip to Stockton to see you. We
wish to ask you one more time to reconsider your decision regarding
my sister’s operation.” Jenny cast a side-glance at Will. “My husband
is in agreement with me that the surgery should not proceed. I wanted
to make it very clear that it’s not just me who objects.”
“What surgery?” Will tried to whisper in Jenny’s ear, but Jenny
nudged him with her elbow and he was silent. Dr. Smyth just shook
her head.
“I’m sorry, Miss Ha—I mean, Mrs. Edwards. I am well aware of
your concern for your sister, but your father has power of attorney
over her affairs. He recognizes that the surgery is our policy, and a
condition of her continued treatment at this institution. He has given
his approval, and no amount of opposition from yourself—or, I’m
afraid, your new husband—can be considered.”
Will felt Jenny stiffen beside him. “I know very well that my father
has power of attorney, and that he’s given his approval,” she said, heat
creeping into her voice. “But I also know that you have the power to
delay the surgery based on medical advice. And that’s what I ... what
we ... are asking you to do.”
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“Of course I would delay the surgery if I harbored even the
slightest concern for Claire’s health,” Dr. Smyth spoke with officious
briskness. “But I do not. The surgery is very simple and straightforward, and it has already been scheduled. There is nothing for you to
be worried about.”
Jenny drew a deep breath, then leveled a dark gaze on the woman.
When she spoke, her voice was sterner and more frightening than
Will ever imagined it could be.
“Let me make myself perfectly clear, Dr. Smyth,” she said slowly.
“The matter is by no means as simple and straightforward as you
believe. I am in discussions with the Consortium regarding this matter, and a great many other matters as well. If you proceed with the
operation against my wishes, I can promise you that they will be very,
very disappointed.”
Dr. Smyth stared at Jenny for a moment, open mouthed. She
seemed to struggle for words. When she finally did speak, her voice
was unsteady.
“Of course,” she said. “That ... that is a different matter.” She
looked between Jenny and Will, and Will was surprised to see there
was actual fear in her eyes. “Perhaps there is more to consider than I
first thought. Perhaps postponing the operation would be in Claire’s
best interest. I believe we could wait another six months. But after
that, we will have to reassess the situation.”
“Thank you for your consideration,” said Jenny, icily. Will stared
down at her in astonishment. What on earth was she doing? What was
this “Consortium” she was talking about? He felt like they were kids
again, and Jenny was acting the part of some villain in a melodrama.
No no no no ...
Across the room, Claire was still tapping the word, again and
again, a quality of misery in the repetition. Dr. Smyth looked over at
her, but there was no sympathy in her eyes.
“What is wrong, Claire?” she called. Claire’s finger stopped abruptly,
and the speaker on the tapper fell silent.
116
“I’m afraid you walked in just as my sister and I were in the
middle of a disagreement,” Jenny said, going back to Claire’s side.
“We were arguing about the Teslaphone. Personally, I don’t like
how it’s always blaring.”
Dr. Smyth raised her eyebrows as she looked at the Teslaphone
cabinet. “Oh, someone turned it off ?” she said. “That won’t do.
Brother Phleger is delivering a special sermon this afternoon. Of
course all our patients are looking forward to hearing it.” She went
over and switched the Teslaphone back on. The sound of the screeching organ music had given way to the smooth, oily tones of a preacher:
“This is your Brother Dolphus Phleger, speaking to you from
Justice, Illinois, where the New Faith Seat of Praise is being raised in
honor of our great Lord’s holy name. His will be done!” He blurted
this last bit like he was spitting a curse. “You just heard our own little
Sanctity Snow—‘God’s Special Snowflake’—on the all-electrical
organ, her playing today inspired by the message of courage and
strength I want to deliver to all the valiant souls who will be participating in this Sunday’s rally in San Francisco ...”
“We keep our patients’ Teslaphones on so they will never miss a
word of the Good Brother’s teachings.” Dr Smyth commented. “And
of course, all our patients just love that dear little Sanctity Snow.”
Turning from the machine, she inclined her head toward them
both. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Edwards. Congratulations
on your marriage, Jenny. I hope you will both be very happy together.
Rest assured that Claire will continue to receive the best treatment
our institution can provide.”
Jenny frowned, pressing her lips together as Dr. Smyth left the
room. “All the best treatment!” she blazed, once the doctor was gone.
She was stomping over to turn off the Teslaphone—now resounding
with Brother Phleger’s rich, syrupy baritone—when Claire tapped:
Leave it.
Jenny froze, but did not turn. Brother Phleger was saying something profound and resonant about the moral decay of the United
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States, and how it was the duty of upright citizens to oppose injustice
and tyranny in all its forms.
You two really married?
Jenny still did not turn, but nodded.
Don’t do it, Jenny. Please. Too dangerous.
“I have to. You know I do.” Jenny ran across the room, pressed a
kiss to her sister’s blackened, tear-glistening cheek. “I love you, Claire.
Goodbye.”
Then, grabbing Will’s arm, she fled.
She fairly dragged Will along the halls and corridors until they
were outside the hospital’s tall front doors. Then, sinking down on
the front steps, she buried her face in her hands and broke down in
tears.
Will’s experience of girls was certainly not sufficient to the experience of one crying. He had the feeling that taking her in his arms
and holding her close might help—but then again, it might not. In
the end, he just sat next to her and patted her back softly, uncertain
as to whether or not that was sufficient.
Then he remembered probably the only valuable thing his father
had ever taught him—always carry a clean handkerchief. Pulling
it from his pocket, he handed it to Jenny and she took it gratefully,
daubing her eyes then blowing her nose lustily.
“I’m sorry. I wish you hadn’t come with me. I thought having you
there would make Dr. Smyth more reasonable. She always is when
father’s around. But I still had to threaten her just as much.”
“What was that all about?”
“I just bought my sister six more months.”
“What was the procedure?”
“It’s called a salpingectomy. It is the surgical sterilization of a
female human, rendering her incapable of reproduction.”
“Sterilize her? You mean like ... gelding a horse?”
“The procedure is just a tiny bit different,” Jenny said with faint
contempt, “but I suppose that’s close enough for a rancher’s son.”
118
Will drew back in shock. “Why, that’s awful!”
“It’s compulsory for all the patients here. Especially the ones like
Claire, the ones they call magically cretinous.” She spoke the term with
distaste. “Dr. Smyth says it makes patients easier to care for, and
removes even the slightest possibility that their contaminated genes
could be passed along.”
“But surely ... I mean, she never could be a mother, could she?”
Will tried to be tactful, but as soon as the words were out of his
mouth he wished he could take them back.
“You don’t know that for sure!” said Jenny, fiercely. “No one does!
And with science and money, who knows what could happen? You
made an incredible power source out of a cigar box! How can they
say for sure that Claire couldn’t be healed someday?”
Will didn’t know what to say. He took Jenny’s hand in his. Her
skin was cold. He held her hand in both of his, rubbing it to warm it.
“Why was Claire so upset, Jenny?” he asked. “Why did she keep
saying ‘no?’”
Jenny’s eyes widened, then became keen and wary.” You understood what she was saying?”
Will nodded. “Sorry. I should have said something. I didn’t mean
to eavesdrop.”
“So that’s why you jumped out of your skin when she said I liked
you.” Jenny gave him a wan grin. “Once liked you.”
“When I could whistle through my teeth,” remembered Will.
“Why was she so upset, Jenny? What are you going to do?”
Jenny, who had been letting Will hold her hand without demur,
now snatched it away. She stood up. Where there had been tears in
her eyes, now there was just anger.
“You promised not to ask me about that,” she said. “Don’t do it
again.”
Will didn’t say anything for a long time. “She said it was dangerous,” he said, finally.
“You just let me worry about that,” said Jenny.
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119
Will took a deep breath. “I need to tell you something,” he said.
“I got a letter from my brother Ben. I finally read it last night. He
wants to help me get to Tesla Industries. He’s opened an account for
me at the National Bank of Detroit and put money in it. He says it’s
enough for me to get started on. For me to get started on.”
Jenny stared at him. She was breathing hard, as if about to launch
into a furious tirade, but she said nothing. Will shifted uncomfortably
under her piercing gaze.
“Anyway, once I get to Berkeley, and the Dimensional Subway,
I’m set.” He looked at the handkerchief in Jenny’s hand. She was
clutching it so hard her knuckles were white. “I don’t know what
you’re thinking of doing. But if you’re thinking of doing it because
of me, you don’t have to. We could get the marriage annulled. Things
could go back to the way they were.”
“You think I want that?” Jenny whispered.
“I don’t know what you want!” said Will, through clenched teeth.
“You’ve made me promise not to ask.”
“And you haven’t even been able to keep that promise!” She bit
the words. “Listen to me, William Edwards. Your plans are not the
only ones I’m concerned about. You may think I’m just part of your
plans. But it’s the other way around. You’re part of my plans, and I
need you.”
“Well maybe I don’t want to be part of your plans, have you
thought about that?” Will replied sharply. “Especially when you
won’t even tell me what they are!”
“I have told you!” she said hotly, voice rising. “I want to file your
patent. I want to see that your work is protected.” Then, in a culmination of pique, she threw the handkerchief at him. “And I want my
share of the profit!”
He couldn’t help but smile at that. He picked up the handkerchief in two fingers, grimacing at its dampness. “Well then,” he said.
“We’d better get going. But no more crying, because I only have one
handkerchief.”
120
“Unless ... you’re trying to ditch me?” she said, and suddenly her
voice was small and uncertain. “Are you trying to ditch me, William?
Don’t you want me to go to Detroit with you?”
“Of course I do!” Will said, jumping to his feet. Then, aware that
he’d spoken too quickly, cleared his throat. “I mean, if you want to.”
“I do,” she said softly.
The sun was sinking swiftly behind Mt. Diablo as the California
Navigation and Improvement riverboat “H.J. Corcoran” steamed out
of Stockton. It was an all-night trip to San Francisco (with many stops
along the way to pick up passengers and freight), fifty cents per passenger and a dollar for a sleeping cabin.
Will paid for the cabin, but he knew it would be far too small
for both of them to sleep in decently. And it would seem suspicious
for a young married couple—who would presumably have no similar
scruples about decency—to buy two. Thus, when the hour got late,
Will left Jenny to sleep in the cabin and went down to the hold make
himself as comfortable as he could within the Baker’s close confines.
Automobiles were common enough now that Will hadn’t had any
difficulty convincing the stevedores to load Pask’s machine on alongside the horse-teams. The hold, loaded with produce bound for sale in
the San Francisco markets, smelled of San Joaquin River mud and the
dray horses’ pungent leavings. A chill, low-hanging fog blanketed the
dark water, and Will shivered as he wrapped his motoring duster close.
There was no light in the hold, save a low-burning kerosene lamp
that swung in a brass gimbal. So Will switched on the Baker’s headlamps and went to sit in front of the car. Consulting his wristwatch
to ensure that it was past midnight, he pulled Ben’s letter out of his
pocket. To his astonishment, he discovered that the text had entirely
changed.
Dear Will:
First, I’ve got to tell you something important that I forgot to write
in my last letter. The minute Mother figures out you’ve really gone,
she’s going to Send for you, and the longer you don’t answer the
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madder she’s going to get ... and you know, when she’s mad, the
Sends hurt worse. So you’d better know what to do about it.
There’s no nice way to put this ... you have to be willing to hurt yourself. The only way to really break a Send is with pain. And it can’t
be just a pinch. It’s got to hurt and hurt bad. Stab a pin into your leg,
burn a match against your arm, something like that. It will break the
Send and give her second thoughts about Sending for you again.
Will absorbed this information, brow wrinkled. What did that
mean, ‘give her second thoughts?’ Would breaking the Send hurt
Ma’am as much as it hurt him? Will didn’t like that thought at all.
Ma’am’s Sends were annoying, but they weren’t worth hurting her for.
Shaking his head, he continued to read.
Now that’s out of the way, I want to get to the business at hand—and
that’s telling you the truth—the real truth, as opposed to whatever
our parents may have told you. Or, for that matter, what our brothers
have told you, for you are no better off trusting any of them than you
are trusting Father. He’s made each one of them into a perfect little
replica of himself. Parts of himself, anyhow.
First of all, I wasn’t “sent away.” I left when I was thirteen—by mutual agreement. They probably told you I was intractable. I wasn’t.
I simply wanted something Father didn’t want me to want, and as
you have discovered, in our family, that’s on a par with being a boy
who tortures cats or sets barn fires. But I imagine what you’re most
interested in why I fought with Father. Because of all the secrets
that have been kept from you, I’m sure it’s the one that’s been most
carefully kept.
Here, Will began reading more quickly.
The fight happened just after you were born. Father and Uncle
Royce called all of us boys into Father’s study. Uncle Royce closed
the door and he locked it. I remember, Father had you in his arms—
he was holding you so gently. You wouldn’t imagine it, but he was
always very good with babies. Mother wasn’t there—she was sleeping, I think. You were a late baby—she was over forty when she had
you—and the birth had been very difficult.
Now, it gets a little strange.
122
Will lifted an eyebrow. As if it wasn’t strange already, this story told
on a magical sheet of paper, filled with family secrets that he wasn’t
supposed to know!
It was Uncle Royce who made the bizarre announcement. He said
that in order to forestall the possibility of any of us contracting Black
Flu, we were all going to be inoculated with Panchrest immediately.
That very night.
Can you understand just how bizarre this announcement was, Will?
First of all, one doesn’t “catch” Black Flu. It’s the severest form of
magical allergy, but it is no more contagious than hayfever. Also, the
very concept of Panchrest inoculation was unheard of at the time.
These days, of course, the question of mandatory immunization is a
topic of intense national debate—with our own brother Argus making
political hay out of his Anti-Immunization stance, which I find ironic in
the extreme, given what happened that night. My point is, in 1892,
when this happened, there was no talk of using the Panchrest preventatively. There was no discussion of “busting the Mantic Trust” or
any such foolishness.
But Uncle Royce told us that we were all to be inoculated that night.
Father did not speak, but simply sat behind his desk, five hypodermic syringes lined up before him. One for each of us.
Argus, Laddie, and Nate submitted without protest. And you, of
course, could not struggle, for you were only an infant.
When it my turn came, however, I refused. I knew how the Panchrest
worked—by irreversibly blocking the magical channels in the human
body. Taking the shot would render me incapable of ever practicing
magic. And I had been planning a career in magic all my life. I’d never
made any secret of it. Little brother, there was nothing I wanted more
than to be a warlock.
I could have been one, too—a real one, as powerful as an Old User.
There were only two of us boys who could—Argus and me, both of us
born before 1878, the year of The Great Change. And as I’d just seen
Argus take the shot, at that moment I was the only one left.
Magic has lineages, Will. Sure, Mother was just a hedgewitch, and her
magical lineage wasn’t especially powerful or distinguished ... but it
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was hers. And it was ours. And it was mine. And Father wanted to take
it away from me.
When it became clear that I was going to kick up one holy hell of a fuss,
Uncle Royce sent the other boys out of the room. Of course, they all
stayed right by the door to listen through the keyhole. So then it was
just Father, Uncle Royce, and me. And you, of course.
I told them both to go to hell.
Secretly, I believed Uncle Royce would help me. I know you don’t
like him, Will. None of the brothers do. But he’s always been more
like a father to me than Father ever was. And at least he tried to
comfort me—unlike our own father, who could only stare at me with
the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen.
Uncle Royce told me he knew people at the Stanton Institute. He
promised me that he would find a way for me to study there. But
what good would that do me? I kicked and screamed. I fought. I
wasn’t going to let them take magic away from me. But it was twoon-one, Will. And they were both strong.
Uncle Royce held me down in a chair. Father gave me the shot.
And that was the end of me.
No more room. I wish I had thought to nick two sheets of stationery
from the Sophos’ office. Maybe I’ll revive the old art of writing crossways lines next time. But for tonight, I guess that’s enough.
Ben
Will sat back, exhaling a gulped breath he hadn’t been aware of
was holding. It congealed in the cool night air, swirling in the harsh
beam of the Baker’s headlights.
My God, thought Will. It was monstrous.
How could Father and Uncle Royce have done that to him? And then,
in all the years that followed, maintain that everything had been Ben’s fault?
He could hardly believe it of his father. Father may have never
appreciated Will’s passion for Otherwhere Engineering—but other
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than opposing the apprenticeship he’d never done anything to actively
thwart it. He’d never done anything to Will like he’d done to Ben—
destroying all his hopes with such utter thoroughness. It would be like
blinding him and chopping off his hands.
Will folded the letter and carefully returned it to his pocket, letting
his hand rest over it for a few moments. Then he crawled into the
Baker and turned off the lights.
But he knew there was no way he’d be able to sleep.
Chapter Seven
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he “H.J. Corcoran” was scheduled to make two stops along the San
Francisco wharves—the first at Pier 27 to unload the cargo, and the
second at Pier Three to unload passengers. The second stop, at the
Ferry Terminal building at the foot of Market Street, would have been
more convenient, but Will and Jenny had to get off at the first, because
it was the only place where the Baker could be unloaded.
They drove south along the Embarcadero, the piers a hive of activity even before dawn on a Sunday, making their way to Market
Street and the financial district where, Will supposed, Jenny’s crooked
lawyer was to be found. As they drove, Will saw evidence of the catastrophic earthquake and fire that had occurred just four years prior.
But the city seemed determined to put the horrible memory behind
itself as quickly as possible. Razed blocks sat side-by-side with fresh
new construction.
Driving along Market Street was a novel challenge for Will. He’d
never driven on such a busy thoroughfare. He had to contend not only
with streetcars and horse-drawn carts, but also with barking traffic
cops. He was relieved when Jenny directed him to turn off onto Fourth
Street and park the machine in an alley.
The Emporium, one of San Francisco’s biggest department stores,
was just around the corner on Market, and they had a whole bank of
pay-telephones. Jenny used one of these to call her crooked lawyer
at home. Will leaned against the wooden telephone booth, listening
126
as Jenny asked for a Mr. Sawtelle. She briskly assured him that was
a matter of extreme urgency, and that yes, she was aware that it was
Sunday, and a day of rest, but that nonetheless, he must come down to
his office and meet her immediately.
Hanging up the receiver, Jenny slid open the glass-and-mahogany
door and stepped out of the booth. “Mr. Sawtelle wants to finish his
breakfast,” she informed Will, “but I got him to agree to come down.
He’ll be here in an hour.”
Will would have been happy to get some breakfast himself, but
Jenny had other plans for their spare hour—plans involving a ride up
the elevator to the second floor of the Emporium, where the ladies’
clothing department was housed. Will trailed after her, supremely superfluous, until Jenny parked him on a wooden bench next to a couple
of other similarly superfluous husbands. Both men grunted a sympathetic greeting before returning to their conversation. Will stared. The
store was already having a Christmas sale! And the store was packed
with holiday shoppers apparently unaware of just how ridiculous this
was.
“I just hope we can get down to the Presidio in time,” said one of
the men. “The match gets underway at 2:30.”
The other man consulted his watch. “Pshaw. You got plenty of
time.”
“Sure, if the rally doesn’t jam up all the traffic,” the first man fretted. “They’re expecting hundreds.”
“Church gets out at eleven,” the second man noted. “And you
know those good church folk, they all want to get home for lunch.
I’ll lay you a nickel they quickstep it through their speeches at the
courthouse, burn their effigy or whatever it is they’re going to do, and
clear out by one.”
“I sure wouldn’t mind hanging around and watching,” said the
first man. “Apparently it’s going to be a big hoop-dee-doo!”
Will saw Jenny out of the corner of his eye, darting purposefully
through the ladies’ department with two shopgirls in tow. Jenny moved
with the calm assurance of thorough practice; she had merely to
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gesture to something and a shopgirl would pick it up and add it to the
mounded pile she carried. Finally, she and the shopgirls disappeared
into a fitting room. When they emerged, Jenny was wearing a very serious suit of dark grey wool with a black velvet collar that made her look
years older than she actually was. But she had not entirely abandoned
her commitment to remaining fashionable; the suit’s severe effect was
softened by a lacy, ruffled shirtwaist of blush pink, and the skirt was
of the up-to-the-minute “hobble” variety, with a wide band of black
velvet near the hem that restricted her stride to a wibbling mince.
She had also obtained a new hat, even more excessively large than
her last. It featured an entire bird’s wing in the front, rising up from
the brim.
“How about it?” she said, doing a half-turn in front of him. “Do I
look like a serious married woman?”
Will was opening his mouth to reply when one of the salesgirls,
who had been following Jenny like a baby duckling, marched up and
briskly handed him several neatly wrapped parcels (the clothes Jenny
had changed out of) as well as an enormous hat-box containing the
now-clearly-disgraced hat she’d worn in to the store. Laid atop the
boxes was a neatly penned receipt. When Will saw it, all thoughts of
replying to Jenny’s question vanished.
“Good lord!”
“Don’t worry, I have an account here,” Jenny said. “The bills go
to Dad.”
“How can anyone spend that much on a hat?” he wailed as he
followed Jenny out of the department. The two men watched in sympathy as he went.
Emerging from the Emporium, they crossed Market Street, dodging drays and autos alike. Jenny led him about a half block down to
O’Farrell, and came to a stop outside of a very grand structure—the
Union Trust Building. It looked like a Greek Temple. Will, having expected something quite a bit seedier, was surprised.
“You wait out here,” said Jenny. “And keep a lookout.”
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“Keep a lookout for what?” Will protested. “And what exactly am
I supposed to do if whatever it is I’m supposed to be looking out for
shows up? Hoot like a barn owl? Throw the hat box at them?”
“Fine, if you won’t let me be nice about it, I’ll be rude,” she said.
“You look like a Sacramento Valley bumpkin and I’d be embarrassed
to bring you into Mr. Sawtelle’s office.”
“Bumpkin!” Will would have thrown his hat to the sidewalk in
outrage, but his hands were quite full. “Well, I like that! Won’t your
Mr. Sawtelle want some proof that you have a husband?”
“This is all the proof I need,” Jenny said, half-drawing the marriage certificate out of her purse. “Signed and sealed by the county
clerk in Stockton.” As she tucked the certificate back, Will noticed
another envelope in Jenny’s purse—heavy, cream-colored, with a professional logo printed on it.
“So you expect me to just stand out here on the sidewalk?”
Jenny sighed. “For heaven’s sake, do I have to think of everything?”
She pointed across the street to a coffee shop. “Go have a piece of pie.
I’ll meet you there in a half-hour.”
Glad of the chance to lay down his burdens, Will hurried across
the street. He was delighted to discover that what had looked to be
just a regular old coffee shop was actually an automatic restaurant.
He’d heard about these “automats” from his more citified friends
at the Polytechnic—all the offerings were arrayed behind tiny glass
doors and accessed by deposited nickels. With the loose change in his
pocket, he bought not only a slice of pie, but also some coffee and a
bowl of oxtail soup. He enjoyed figuring out how the automat worked,
peering in through the little cubes to see the waitresses bustling in the
kitchen beyond. He was disappointed to discover that the food was not
delivered in some more clever way, via chutes or pneumatic tubes or
something. He finally sat down and ate his pie, which was fine, but not
much compared to his Ma’am’s.
He was just finishing the last bite when he became aware of a commotion in the street outside. At first it was hard to separate from the
late-breakfast din of the café, but then he recognized the unmistakable
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sound of brass horns and drums. The jaunty march drew the attention
of several of the automat’s patrons, and they went to the front window
and peered down Market Street.
A parade was coming up the street—and though Will could only
see the first few marchers from where he was standing, it seemed like it
must be a large one. Traffic down Market Street was grinding to a halt
and distant passersby were clogging the sidewalks to watch.
A small brass marching band came first; not any kind of a formal
band in uniform, these men wore Sunday suits and hats. There were
a few trumpets, a handful of trombones, and even a couple of tubas.
And one large drum. Instead of bringing up the rear, the drum was
right up front, where the marching band conductor would usually be,
clearing a path with its thunderous thud-thud-thud.
Will stepped out onto the sidewalk, joining dozens of others to get
a better look. As the small band passed, Will could better see the hundreds of marchers following them. They were led by a half-dozen matronly ladies—full-figured, stalwart, clad in their best Sunday dresses
and huge flowered hats—bearing a wide banner before themselves:
San Francisco Churches United for
Mandatory Panchrest Immunization
“They’re marching up to the U.S. Courthouse on Seventh,” someone in the crowd nearby said. “They’re coming from the revival at the
new Scharfian Temple. Brother Phleger gave a sermon by Teslaphone
this morning, and I hear it was a doozy!”
Most of the marchers waved small American flags, but a few dozen
carried neatly lettered signs. Most of these bore the official slogan of
the movement—“Immunization Now!” but a few other variations had
been interspersed for variety’s sake. Several signs read “Keep America’s
Children Safe,” with America’s children (as a class) represented by a
picture of “Little Sanctity Snow,” the cherubic, white-ringleted musical prodigy whose divinely-inspired stylings on the electrical organ
accompanied all of Brother Phleger’s Teslaphone jeremiads.
Some marchers had the special job of handing out literature to
those gathered along the curb to watch. A pamphlet was shoved hastily
130
into Will’s hands. It bore the now-familiar photo of Little Sanctity
Snow, and a coy headline that read “Stamp out the Allergy—for Good.”
Will noticed it also bore the logo of Sanitas Pharmaceutics—the
manufacturers of the Panchrest—at the bottom. He shoved the
pamphlet into his pocket.
A distinctly different group—younger and more boisterous—followed the first contingent of marchers. At the vanguard of this group
walked a handful of sharp-looking young men in business suits, carrying a banner of their own:
Level the Playing Field—Fair is Fair!
The signs carried by the young men in this group were much different than the ones which had preceded them. There were no pictures
of angelic (and presumably endangered) children. Instead, their signs
were painted with cartoons of rich fat old men, lifting magical charms
aloft with self-satisfied arrogance. Little stars and swirls around their
heads graphically signified their use of magic. Each sign bore the exact same words: “Bust the Magical Trust!”
So these were the representatives of the Malmantic Generation’s
business class, thought Will. The professional men under the age of
thirty who keenly resented the magical advantages—charms and potions to enhance attention, boost financial acumen, extend vitality,
charm the tongue for keener negotiations—which were still available
to members of an earlier generation. As it was the city’s financial district that they were marching through, these young men attracted the
crowd’s most enthusiastic cheers and whistles.
The young businessmen were followed, at some length, by two very
large men, dressed in matching shirts of bright red satin decorated
with silver spangles. They were broadly mugging for the crowds, and
the other marchers had clearly given them a wide berth so they might
command the greatest amount of attention. Between them they carried an effigy of a well-fed man dressed in a politician’s suit, swinging
from its neck by a noose. Pinned to its shirtfront was a placard: “Argus
Edwards, California’s Traitor to the People.”
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Will put a hand over his mouth, not sure if he was stifling a gasp of
horror or a belly laugh. Criminy, it looked just like Argus! So that’s what he
and Uncle Royce had been sweating their brains over at Thanksgiving.
Oh gosh, what he wouldn’t give to see his brother’s face right now!
“Will!” Someone seized his arm, startling him—but it was just
Jenny, her cheeks pink with excitement. Her blue eyes sparkled. “I got
the money! Can you believe it, I got it!” Reaching inside her purse, she
pulled out a crisp new envelope. She was just opening it to show him
the contents when a loud call came from a ways down the sidewalk:
“Jenny?”
Jenny and Will turned at the same time—and at the same time,
they gasped.
Standing on the corner at the far end of the block were Argus and
Mr. Hansen.
Argus, surrounded by a large number of his political cronies, was
clearly taking his responsibility to look stern and disapproving very
seriously, so he gave Will little more than a quick glance. But Mr.
Hansen’s brow furrowed in confusion and he began walking toward
them, pushing his way through the dense crowd.
“Jenny?” he called again. “Will?”
“Dad!” squeaked Jenny. “Oh no, how could he—quick, William!
We have to get to the car! If he catches us—”
Her words were cut off as Will took Jenny’s arm and began pulling
her along the sidewalk in the opposite direction.
“William!” she cried, stumbling. The stupid, fashionable hobble
skirt made it impossible for her to move any faster than a mincing trot.
Will swore under his breath. Glancing back, he saw that Mr.
Hansen had escaped the press of the sidewalk and was running along
the curb of Market Street, knowing he’d be able to move faster. Will
slowed. He didn’t want to run away from Mr. Hansen. It just seemed
so ... low.
Jenny sensed his hesitation. “Goddamn it, William! We have got to
get out of here—I mean it!”
132
The panicked urgency in Jenny’s voice was like a bucket of ice
over his head. His heart raced. Picking her up, he threw her over his
shoulder and began to run.
“Jenny!” Mr. Hansen’s voice was a breathy roar. “Jenny, Will, please
... stop!”
Will shouldn’t have been able to outrun a turtle—much less a stillpowerful father-in-law—with Jenny weighing him down, but he too
made a break for Market Street, just as Mr. Hansen had, darting
in among the crowd of marchers. Cries of pointed disapproval rang
from all sides, but their bodies made an effective screen.
Just off Market Street, Will glimpsed a small alleyway between two
of the buildings. Hoping Jenny’s father hadn’t seen them turn down it,
he slid Jenny off his shoulder, and they stood listening as Mr. Hansen
called for them. They listened as he continued past them, and kept
listening until his calls grew softer.
When they could no longer hear him, they hurried back to the
Baker. As the two men in the Emporium had predicted, the march had
proceeded with admirable efficiency. The streets had already cleared,
and Argus was nowhere to be seen.
Will refrained from saying anything until they were in motion.
Then he exploded.
“What the hell, Scuff ?” he yelled. “You said he’d understand!”
“I meant someday,” Jenny yelled back with equal heat. “If he caught
us now, before he had a chance to cool off and accept the situation,
there’d be hell to pay!” She kept glancing back, as if expecting her
father to appear at any moment.
Will jammed the controller forward into the next higher speed.
After they had put several blocks behind them, Will looked over at
Jenny. She was frowning unhappily, and she looked tiny beneath her
huge winged hat.
“They all must have come back to the city early.” Her face was
closed and dark, and her earlier happiness over her success was gone
without a trace. She knew that she had hurt her father, and Will could
see that it stung.
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“Well, of course Argus came back early,” muttered Will. “If he got
wind that someone was going to hang him in effigy, he wouldn’t have
missed it for the world.”
“Dad will see,” said Jenny softly, striking a tightly closed fist
against her leg. “I’m going to show him and then he’ll understand.
He’ll understand everything.”
Then she didn’t say anything else for a long time.
They drove down to the Ferry Terminal Building, where they could
catch the ferry that would take them to Oakland, where the Berkeley
campus was. Given that Mr. Grigoriyev had said that the Dimensional
Subway would take them straight to Detroit, it wasn’t worth making
arrangements for transporting the Baker. They both agreed (Will more
reluctantly than Jenny) that it was time for them to part ways with the
crummy old machine.
Using tools from his leather bag, Will carefully removed the
Otherwhere Flume and tucked the cigar box safely inside his vest. It
was bulky and the corners poked him, but it was safer there than rattling around in his bag of tools. Jenny withdrew her little calfskin grip
from under the seat. In their escape, Will had neglected to retrieve her
packages from the automat, but he supposed she didn’t dare comment
on that.
Even though the Baker was a beat-up old wreck, Will felt a twinge
of regret. He and that car had had some fine times. He gave it a last
fond pat. Jenny sniffed.
“Honestly,” she said. “It’s a rotten heap and one good thing about
it you just took out. Which, strictly speaking, I own, since I bought the
car.”
“Don’t push your luck,” Will growled, lifting the toolbag and settling it over his shoulder. Leaving the Baker behind made him keenly
aware of how little he truly had. His Otherwhere Flume, his toolbag,
his cap, the clothes on his back—and an angry father-in-law hot on
his heels.
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A quick ferry ride to Oakland, followed by a quick streetcar ride,
and they were on Berkeley’s leafy campus. Will knew the campus
layout by heart—before he’d been accepted into the Tesla Industries
apprenticeship program, Berkeley had been one of his top choices of
colleges. He’d often scrutinized the campus map, noting with special
interest the South Hall, which housed one of the very first physics
laboratories in the United States.
And even though he was going to Tesla Industries, Will felt no
less excited as they entered the ivy-covered building, and climbed the
polished wooden stairs to the second floor.
Entering the physics lab, Will was reminded of the similar lab
he’d worked in at the Polytechnic. Bunsen burners sat atop soapstone
work surfaces; cabinets and shelves were crowded with apparati, tools,
etched reagent bottles. He breathed in the wonderful smell of science—tangy and bitter and profoundly rational.
In a far corner of the room a heavyset young man stood hunched
over some kind of experimental setup that was emitting random, infrequent clicks. Curious, Will crossed the room to get a closer look.
The sound of his steps was swallowed by the soft asphalt floor tiles.
The clicks, Will discovered, were coincident with a flash of a phosphorescent tube and the galvanic jerk of a pen on a scrolling piece
of paper. The paper was also being marked at regular intervals by a
chronometer. Nearby was a barometer; as the chronometer ticked off
a marking, the heavyset young man indicated the barometric pressure
reading near to it.
Will was so fascinated that he didn’t even look at the young experimenter taking the measurements. The clicking device seemed familiar ...
“A Geiger counter!” he blurted, when the recognition finally hit him.
It was only then that the two young men actually looked at each
other, and when they did their surprise was compounded.
“William Edwards!” the young experimenter cried.
“Tom!” said Will. There was a round of hearty handshaking and
backslapping. “Are you the one everyone calls ‘Massy’?”
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“Yeah, the fellows gave it to me as a goof.” Massy sheepishly patted his belly, which had indeed gained in mass since Will had last seen
him. “To much time in the lab, not enough with the kettle bells.”
“Jenny, this is Thomas Masterson,” Will said. “He was a senior at
the Polytechnic when I was just a raw frosh. He showed me around.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Jenny, extending her hand. “I’m Will’s wife.”
“Wife!” Massy’s eyes widened, and he stared at Will. “But you just
graduated, didn’t you? You move fast!”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Will said. “I’m on my way to Tesla
Industries. I’ve been accepted into their apprenticeship program.”
“You’re going to Fort Tesla? With a wife?” Massy shook his head,
as if he didn’t know which fact was more astonishing. “Boy, they must
really want you!”
“You know, I’m standing right here,” said Jenny, rather sourly.
Massy gave her a courtly bow.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Edwards,” he grinned. His eyes traveled over the
gear they both carried—Will’s toolbag, Jenny’s little grip—then back
up to them. “So, using my exceptional powers of deduction, I reach
the following conclusion. Given that Tesla Industries thinks you’re so
swell, they’ve decided to impress you by offering you the use of the
Dimensional Subway to get to Detroit. Am I right?”
“On the nose.”
“Fine and dandy,” Massy said. “Happy to oblige. But you’ll have
to wait until I take my next reading. I’ve been taking them every fifteen
minutes for the past month—it’s been one hell of a job, even with
someone relieving me at night.”
“What are you recording?” Will asked, peering at the pens on the
paper.
“Studying the correlation between cosmic rays and barometric
pressure,” Massy said. “You know how some researchers think that
the Connection Drop Problem is associated with barometric pressure,
right? Well, it’s my theory that it’s not the barometric pressure, but
the fact that more cosmic rays get through when the pressure is high.
136
In other words, I’m starting to get the idea that it’s the cosmic rays that
cause the random connection loss.”
“You don’t say.” Will shoved his hands in his pockets, doing his best
to remain casual. He glanced at Jenny, but she was pointedly ignoring
the conversation, instead looking out a window onto the smooth green
lawn outside the South Hall.
“I certainly do! I’ve been taking readings for a month now, and the
preliminary results are very interesting. I’ve already decided to do my
master’s thesis on it.”
Will cleared his throat. He looked at his shoes for what seemed
quite a long time before an inspiration struck him.
“So how are you accounting for the terrestrial radiation?” he asked.
Massy shrugged. “I’ll just factor it out using the Princeton averages.”
Will sucked in air through his teeth.
“What?” said Massy, immediately on guard.
“Hell, Tom, I don’t like to mention it if you’ve already been taking
readings for a month—”
“What?” Massy roared.
“This building has a granite foundation,” said Will. “Noticed it
when I came in.”
“So?” Annoyance laced the graduate student’s voice.
“Haven’t you heard about the comparative analysis of granite they
did down at Stanford?” Will asked. “They found extremely high radiation in some California granites. Who can say how much radioactivity
the granite foundation in this building is giving off ?”
“God damn it!” Massy blurted. “Granite? You’re saying my whole
set of readings might be screwy because of granite?”
“It’s not so bad,” Will strove to sound soothing. “You just have to
figure out the exact level of terrestrial radiation you’re dealing with. Do
some comparative studies of different granites, that kind of thing.”
“That’ll add months!”
“Oh well, it’s not like you know of anyone else who is working on
this,” Will said. Then he added, somewhat pointedly: “Do you?”
“No, no one,” said Massy. “But still ...”
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“Then what are you worried about? Take all the time you need. Get
your numbers right. It’ll make defending your thesis that much easier,
right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Massy. He didn’t sound happy about it, but
he sounded convinced, and Will exhaled a silent sigh of relief.
After taking his reading, Massy led them out of the laboratory and
down the hall. He walked ahead of them both, muttering curses under
his breath as he did. Jenny leaned close to Will.
“Good work,” she said, elbowing him in the ribs. “You’re sneakier
than I thought.”
“I am not sneaky,” Will whispered back, hotly. “California granite
is radioactive.”
“Well, thank goodness, because otherwise your Nobel Prize is going to have Thomas Masterson’s name on it. Now, I don’t like to say I
told you so—”
“Then don’t.”
“Fine. But I will say this. The sooner we get your Flume patented
the better!”
Will said nothing, but suddenly felt a strong agreement with her.
The thought of anyone else getting credit for the discovery he had
made—even Massy, who he liked—was flat out infuriating.
Massy came to a stop at a very simple door, certainly simpler than
one would expect for what lay behind it. It actually appeared to be a
broom closet that had been retrofitted for its special purpose. On the
door some wag had hung a sign printed by New York City’s Transit
Commission, warning travelers against swearing and spitting. On a
hook screwed into the wooden doorframe there hung a clipboard;
clipped to the board was a sheet to record the Subway’s use. Using a
stub of pencil tied to the board by a piece of dirty string, Massy quickly
wrote down their names. Then, pulling out a key he wore around his
neck, he unlocked large wooden cupboard on the wall.
Within the cupboard was a tangle of wires. Will could see glass
fuses as well as a board of numbered wheel dials and a very large
knife switch. A list of locations was thumbtacked to the inside of the
138
cupboard door. Massy peered at this list, running his finger down it
until he found the numerical code for Detroit. He carefully set the
dials, then threw up the knife switch. There was a low hum, and the
door ... smudged. It didn’t shimmer, or glow, it just seemed to lose focus.
Will blinked to make sure it wasn’t his eyes, but it wasn’t.
Fascinated, Will rubbernecked over Massy’s shoulder into the open
cupboard. Even a glimpse of the arrangement of the wiring board
might help him understand how it all worked. It was a piece of Tesla
Industries technology that was still extremely experimental, and they
had never published any information about how it actually worked.
But Massy quickly closed the cupboard and locked it.
“Now, it’s really quite easy,” he said. “You just walk through this
door, and you’ll be in the Otherwhere. In front of you, you’ll see another door. The distance to the second door is proportionate to the
actual physical distance between here and the place you’re going, so
I’d say that makes it ... oh, about fifty feet. So you walk that fifty feet to
the second door, you open it, and you’ll be in Detroit.”
“And it’s not going to make us sick?” said Jenny. The brisk, businesslike tone in her voice told Will she was scared.
“That’s the whole point, there’s no magic in it,” Massy said. “Not
a bit. It’s powered by electricity. It goes through an Otherwhere where
the wind never stops, so they’ve rigged up a whole bunch of windmills
to generate electrical power.”
“And what about that Connection Drop Problem everyone’s always talking about?” Jenny said. “What if that happens while we’re
in there?”
“Unlikely,” Massy said, stroking his chin. “If it did, you might get
stuck in there. But someone would get around to resetting the system.
Eventually.”
Jenny looked at Will with naked alarm on her face.
“Never fear, Mrs. Edwards,” Massy chuckled. “You have a greater
chance of getting struck by lightning.”
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“Are you referring to the probability in a given year, or over a whole
lifetime?” she snapped at him. “Because I will have you know they are
orders of magnitude apart!”
Massy was taken aback by this outburst.
Will put a steadying hand on Jenny’s arm. “Actually, it’s probably
more on the order of me personally getting hit by a meteorite within
the next fifteen minutes,” he offered. Jenny’s eyes turned inward, and
he could almost see the calculations flickering behind her eyes as she
factored in a multitude of estimated variables, including the area of
the Earth’s surface, the density of human habitation, the size of Will’s
head ...
“About one in twenty-trillion,” she concluded with a sigh, after just
a few seconds. “That’s much better.”
Massy was silent for a long moment, looking between them. Then
he released a whistle of admiration. Will felt a strange thrill of pride at
having a wife—even a fictional one—who could be calmed by mathematical analysis.
“I guess I can see why you married her!” said Massy. “If Tesla
Industries wasn’t men only, they might take you both.”
Jenny frowned at him, chin lifted regally “I’d say thanks for the
compliment, except I can’t see how either one of those statements
qualified.”
“All right, all right,” Massy said, throwing up his hands. Catching a
glimpse of his wristwatch, he startled. “Hey, I got to get back and take
my reading! Get on through, you two. And whatever you do, don’t
stop in the middle.” He directed this advice at Will particularly. “Don’t
you dare go Otherwhere exploring. You get lost in there, and no one’s
going to come in and find you.”
Readjusting the satchel on his shoulder, Will took Jenny’s hand and
opened the door.
“Oh yeah, and watch out for Jepson! He’s a no-good son-of-a—”
but the rest of Massy’s words were lost as Will closed the door behind
them.
140
All at once they were in a hot, arid desert under a bright burgundycolored sky that roiled with clouds the color of pomegranate juice.
Powerful winds assaulted them. The force of the gusts plastered
Jenny’s skirts against her legs and she had to seize her hat with both
hands to keep it from being flung into the distance. Will squinted
against the clouds of red dust that the wind kicked up. The windmills
Massy had mentioned were clustered around the portal at intermittent
distances, tall and black and stark, blades whirling like electric table
fans.
The second door was, as Massy had said, about fifty feet distant.
Like the door they had just come through, it looked like it belonged
to the inside of a broom closet. Jenny grabbed Will’s arm and pulled
him toward it.
“Come on!” she yelled, above the howling wind.
But Will could not move. He was frozen with awe. He was in an
actual Otherwhere. An entirely different dimension. He could hardly
believe it. He scanned the horizon, trying to freeze the wonder of it in
his memory.
But then, the Flume tucked inside his vest began making a strange
sound—a high-pitched hum. He slapped a hand to his chest. The cigar box was getting warm. Hot actually. Very, very hot—very, very
quickly. The hum became a squeal, loud and piercing. Then a screech.
Will’s heart began to race. Leaping forward, Will dragged Jenny to the
opposite door, threw it open, and pushed her through.
Slamming the door behind him, Will stumbled across the polished
floor of a dark and quiet room. He fell against the far wall, toolbag
clattering on the floor at his side. There was the smell of burning wire
and rubber; Will clawed at his chest, frantically reaching inside his vest
to pull out the cigar box. Once he got it out he dropped it; it was hot
as hell, smoking and sputtering. When he opened the lid, blue sparks
leaped out, followed by little orange tongues of flame. Pulling his
handkerchief out of his pocket he slapped desperately at the mechanism until the fire was out, then peered disconsolately inside the box.
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“Damn,” he muttered.
“What happened?” Jenny breathed, alarmed. She was caked with
fine red dust from hat to hem.
“I have no idea. I think—something to do with Critical Interactive
Resonance, maybe?” His mind was already navigating the tangle of
melted wires, trying to imagine what could have happened, and what
he’d have to do to fix it ... if he could fix it. “Never even thought about
what might happen if I took the Flume into a different Otherwhere ...”
“Well, it is clear you are thinking about it now,” Jenny said loudly,
trying to break through his absorbed concentration. “Please, share.”
Taking a deep breath, Will turned his gaze away from the ruined
Flume and onto her dust-streaked face.
“Every Otherwhere, being a different dimension, has slightly different laws of physics from our standard universe,” he spoke slowly,
thinking through the problem as he did, drawing conclusions with every word. “The Otherwheres we use are compatible enough with ours
to allow us to exist within them. But the physical incompatibility between Otherwheres can be quite substantial. Substantial enough that
if you bring two of the wrong ones into contact with each other—”
“I’m guessing you’re about to say ‘boom.’”
Will frowned. “Not boom, exactly. More like schloop, as the two
Otherwheres collapse in on each other. Then maybe boom after that. I
don’t think anyone could live long enough to find out.”
“Oh, wonderful.” Angrily, Jenny began brushing red dust off of
herself. “Not only is my lovely new suit simply ruined, but I almost got
schlooped in an Otherwhere. So much better than taking the train.” She
looked at the cigar box in Will’s hands. “Can it be fixed?”
Will released a long sigh.
“No.” He ran a glum finger over Admiral Dewey’s scorched face.
“It’s ruined. I’ll have to build a whole new one from scratch.”
Jenny’s face lit up with rather more happiness than Will thought
was appropriate. He glared at her as he climbed to his feet, tucking
the ruined Flume back inside his vest. “What are you smiling about?”
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“Don’t you see?” she said. “This takes care of all your problems
with Tesla Industries! They wanted you to show them your Flume ...
and now you can’t! It burned up! You’ll have to build a new one from
scratch, and that will take weeks.”
“It’ll take a couple of days.”
“It will take weeks,” Jenny repeated, with emphasis. “Or to be
more precise, it’ll take as long as it takes for me to file your patent. So
you can stay in Tesla’s good books ... and still not get robbed blind.
Problem solved!”
Will considered this. He shook his head.
“You think like a criminal, Scuff,” he said, finally.
“I think like a businesswoman,” said Jenny. “There’s a difference.
Now, where exactly do you think we are, anyway?”
The answer to that was simple enough; they were in a classroom
filled with desks. One wall was lined with high windows, through which
they could see the dark night sky. The sun had just been setting when
they’d left California—so here was one clear indication that they’d
emerged, as expected, many hundreds of miles to the east.
Another wall of the classroom was dominated by a large chalkboard, scribbled from edge to edge with complicated equations.
Glancing over them, Jenny could not keep from rubbing out an incorrect variable and replacing it with another.
“Show off,” said Will. Jenny stuck her tongue out at him.
Passing into the hall, their impression that they were in some kind
of school or university grew stronger. The classrooms were numbered,
and banks of wooden lockers lined the walls. Given the late hour, the
building was completely abandoned and quiet, and their steps rang on
the linoleum floors as they set off in search of an exit.
“Hey!” A yell rang from the far end of the hall. “You kids! What
are you doing in here?”
A janitor in well-worn overalls was approaching them, an old man
with an extravagantly bushy walrus moustache. He wielded his pushbroom like a weapon, eyeing the trail of red dust they’d both left.
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“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Look at this mess! You
think I’m just here to clean up after slobs like you?”
“Well, you are the janitor,” Jenny pointed out.
“We just came through from California, along the Dimensional
Subway,” Will quickly interjected. “Sorry about the mess.”
“I may be the janitor,” the man pointed the words at Jenny, “but
that don’t mean I get paid to do my job twice. I already cleaned up this
wing and I don’t mean to do it again!”
“Clearly, a man who takes pride in his work,” Jenny muttered. Will
stepped on her foot.
“Sir, I’m supposed to meet Grigory Grigoriyev,” he said. “Is this
Tesla Industries?”
The old man’s eyes widened, and then he barked an incredulous
laugh that resounded through the silent halls.
“As if the great master would allow a Dimensional Subway inside
Fort Tesla!” he sneered. “Boy, you don’t know much about Tesla
Industries, do you?”
“I hope to learn more soon,” said Will. “I’ve been accepted as an
apprentice there.”
“Ah,” the old man drew out the word, as if suddenly understanding something. “That explains it. You’re an awful lot younger than
most of the apprentices. And what are you doing, bringing a girl with
you?”
“You know, it gets awful tiresome, being referred to like a poodle,”
Jenny said, crisply.
“A mouthy girl, too,” added the janitor. “What is she, a suffragette
or something?”
Will put a hand on Jenny’s arm. “This is my wife.” The conversation was not only becoming too familiar, the kindling flame in Jenny’s
eyes suggested it might imminently come to blows. “Could you just tell
us where we are, and how to get to Tesla Industries?”
“You’re in the Detroit Institute of Technology,” the old man
said. “Just because that hincty Russian is a pal of the Dean here, he
thinks he can give people free use of the place.” He pushed his broom
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emphatically through the dust Will and Jenny had trailed. “Make extra work for other people is what he does. Vagrants popping in and out
at all hours. I don’t get paid to welcome guests, not even ones all the
way from California.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Jenny, digging in her purse. She
pressed a coin in the man’s hand. “There. Now you have been paid.
Can you please tell us what time it is, and how we can get ahold of
Mr. Grigoriyev, or, failing that, how we can get to Tesla Industries? In
fact, can you provide us with any useful information? Or are you only
capable of regaling us with your complaints?”
The janitor looked at the coin. With a deliberate gesture, he lifted
it to his mouth and bit it. Then he tucked it slowly into his pocket.
When he spoke, he addressed his answer to Will, as if Jenny didn’t
exist.
“It’s getting on eleven,” he said. “You could try dialing Grigoriyev
up, but I expect the switchboard at Tesla Industries is closed for the
night.”
“We’ll call him tomorrow,” said Will. “In the meantime, can you
direct us someplace nearby where we can stay the night?”
“Sure I can,” the old man smiled pleasantly, in a mean way. “You
just go out those doors over there, walk along Adams until you get to
Brush. Go down Brush a few blocks. You’ll find a swell hotel just across
the street from the Michigan Central Depot. The Hotel Acheron. Tell
‘em I sent you.”
Touching his cap to the surly janitor, Will hurried Jenny out of the
building.
Walking out onto the night street, they were surprised to find that
it wasn’t dark. The streets were lit with a high, harsh light that made
the shadows of the buildings seem even darker, and gave the street a
strange, unreal feeling, sharp and contrasty, as if they had stepped into
a silver nitrate photographic print.
“The moon isn’t full, is it?” said Jenny, puzzled.
Will shook his head, and pointed up the street toward a very tall,
slender scaffold, supported on all four corners by steel guy wires.
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“Those must be moonlight towers. I’ve read about them—they’re how
Detroit lights their streets. Up at the top is an array of electric arc
bulbs, so bright you’re supposed to be able to read your watch by them
at midnight.” He gazed at his wrist to confirm the report. Jenny took
his arm and pressed up against him.
“I wish they’d thought to install heat lamps instead,” she said. And
indeed, once Will’s interest in the moonlight towers waned, he noticed
just how bitterly cold it was. Soot-grimed snow was piled up in the
gutters, and a biting wind sliced them both to the bone.
“I always wondered why women made such a fuss about furs,”
Jenny said through chattering teeth. “What I wouldn’t give for a mink
or a sable right now!”
Cold as it was, when they got to the Hotel Acheron, they both
hesitated before going in. Surrounded by seedy saloons, it fulfilled every qualification of the worst kind of flophouse, clearly catering to
traveling salesmen and their hangers on.
“Maybe it’s not so bad,” said Will, shivering. “It’s probably nicer
on the inside.”
Unfortunately, it was worse. The walls of the lobby were stained
with old damp and the room smelled of mold and urine and harsh
tobacco shake. Jenny stood in the very middle of the lobby, as if unwilling to get too close to any of the greasy-looking walls, as Will went
to speak to the night-man.
The night-man was gaunt, his rat-like features deformed by what
must have been a protracted childhood bout with Black Flu. The
entire left side of his head, from eyeball to ear, was engulfed in a
coal-black mass of protuberant cauliflower-textured flesh, shiny and
moist-looking.
“By the hour or by the night?” The night-man did not even look
at Will, but rather leered at Jenny. His left eye—sunken like a dull
ochre bead within the massive doughy growth—glittered suggestively.
Pulling silver from his pocket, Will slapped it down on the counter,
hard.
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Laughing softly, the night-man pulled himself painfully from his
chair—he also wore a heavy leg brace supporting a twisted, misshapen
leg—and retrieved a room key from the pegboard behind him.
The room they were given was on the third floor, and reaching
it required navigating not one, but two puddles of fresh vomit. The
room had peeling wallpaper with a pattern that suggested leering demonic faces; a swayback bed with a rusted iron frame; and a window
that opened onto a brick wall. It was lit by a single, weak electric bulb,
and there was a small, disgustingly filthy hand-sink in the corner. Will
didn’t want to say anything to Jenny, but he would bet that the grim
parade of down-on-their-luck men who’d occupied this room before
them had used that sink for very specific purposes that had nothing to
do with the washing of hands. The room was freezing—if possible,
it seemed almost colder inside the room than it had been out on the
street. Will discovered that the radiator was cold to the touch; someone had turned off the valve. He turned it on and was greeted by the
welcome hiss of steam.
“It’ll warm up soon,” he said, glad to find one note of comfort in
the otherwise cheerless room.
“At least there’s a b-blanket,” she chattered, climbing into the bed
without even bothering to take off her shoes. “Only one though.” She
eyed Will with some hesitation. Her next words were colored with false
bravado. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing else to do. Come on, pile in!”
When he lifted an eyebrow at this, Jenny made a noise of exasperation. “I can’t let you freeze to death, can I? And we’ve both got
all our clothes on.” Making her face grave, she crossed her heart with
her index finger. “William, I promise I won’t take advantage of you.”
Without a word, Will climbed into bed beside Jenny and wrapped
a corner of the blanket around himself.
“I say, this isn’t a bit like California, is it?” said Jenny, as they shivered against each other.
“Not at all,” he said. “Thank God.”
Opening her purse, which she had kept clutched close to herself,
she withdrew the envelope she had gotten in San Francisco. He wasn’t
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sure if she was doing this for his benefit, or if she just wanted to confirm
that she still possessed the fruits of their ill-gotten gain. He watched
as she pulled out ten pieces of paper. Each one was a gold certificate.
Each gold certificate bore a face value of $10,000.
Will’s heart leapt into his throat, and it took some doing to choke
it back down.
“Jenny ...” he finally managed. “Jenny, that’s ... that’s ... a hundred
thousand dollars.”
Jenny nodded.
Will sat up straight. If his marrow wasn’t chilled before, it sure as
heck was now. “You’ve been walking around with a hundred thousand
dollars in gold certificates in your purse?” He clapped a hand over his
mouth, wishing he hadn’t spoken the words aloud.
“You’re right, it would be an awful shame if some random purse
snatcher got ahold of them.” She placed the certificates back in their
envelope, then, instead of returning the envelope to her purse, she slid
it down the front of her dress. She patted her bosom. “There. Better.”
“Better?” Will squeaked. “You don’t thwart purse snatchers by
inviting rapists, Jenny!”
She laughed softly. “There are a lot more random purse snatchers
than random rapists, my sweet darling William. And besides, I’ve got
you to protect me from them.”
Will stared at her, speechless once again.
“Sleep tight,” she said, leaning over to press a kiss on his cheek. She
recoiled abruptly, with a frown. “Oh! You’re so bristly. I wish you’d at
least brought a razor.”
Then Jenny cuddled up under his arm and pulled the blanket
tightly around herself. She fell asleep immediately, her face relaxing
into an expression so placid that Will found it almost unholy.
He leaned his head back against the bed frame and stared at the
grimy orange bulb hanging from the cracked ceiling. Under other circumstances, finding himself cozied up in a bed with a warm, beautiful
girl would have significantly discomfited him—especially since the couple in the next room had begun noisily rattling their rented bedsprings
148
and he could hear every particular of their exertions through the thin
walls. But all he had to do was imagine what any of the low-lives in
this hotel would do if they knew that a couple of kids from California
were carrying around $100,000 worth of gold certificates—cash-ondemand, payable-to-the-bearer, no-questions-asked gold certificates.
Gee, that was as good as a cold shower and then some!
Suddenly, Will wished he had thought to bring a razor, but not
for shaving.
Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink with all those
gold certificates stuffed down Jenny’s dress, he pulled the letter from
Ben out of his pocket. Glancing at his wristwatch to check the time,
he was somewhat disoriented when he found that it was just after ten
... but then he remembered that meant it was ten in California. He
was in Detroit. Removing his watch, he carefully set it forward by
three hours.
Then, he unfolded the letter, wondering idly if the Sophos’ magical letterhead reckoned midnight on Eastern or Pacific time. It must
have some mechanism for adjusting, he decided, for he found that the
words on the paper were new.
Dear Will:
You know, writing you these letters is very odd, because each time I
feel like I have to go farther back in the past to explain the previous
letter. In the last letter I told you about the fight I had with Father, and
why I went away. But then I realized that, to really understand why
that happened, you have to understand Catherine.
Of course, you know that you had a sister, and she died of Black
Flu eight years before you were born. You probably have some idea
how hard Mother took it—but you don’t know, not really. Because
you were the one who pulled her out of it. You being born allowed
her to live again. You gave her back her sanity.
Anyway, Catherine. I was six years old when Catherine came and
went.
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Before Catherine, I had a mother, and she loved me. She was the
first one who taught me magic. She showed me all sorts of wonderful little tricks—a child’s magic. She taught me silly things—how to
turn the down of a baby chick bright blue, how to make a flower
bloom with a touch.
Oh Will, I loved her so much. I thought she made the moon rise
and set. For six years, I had a mother. But after Catherine, she was
gone, and I would never have her again.
It is believed that the children who die most quickly from Black Flu
are those with the greatest inborn magical powers. Catherine died
within three days of being born, the allergic reaction tearing through
her like wildfire. It is possible that she was magically afflicted, for it
all happened during a full moon, which surely made matters worse.
Magical afflictions are at their worst during a full moon.
I can’t tell you how horrible it was. I remember looking into her crib
and seeing her tiny, black, disfigured hands grasping for something,
clutching. I was afraid of her, Will. I was afraid that she would try
to grab me and hold onto me like a tick or leech. That’s what she
looked like. A fat black grub. Something that would get under your
skin and burrow. Even to this day, remembering her makes me sick.
That’s an awful thing to think about your baby sister. I’ve never told
it to anyone, until now. I certainly never told it to Mother, but she
knew. She always knew what we thought in our heads, Will. And
that’s what made her start to hate me. She hated me for the way I
felt about Catherine.
And she stopped looking at me.
Do you know what I mean when I say that? You probably don’t. I
doubt she ever punished you like that. You were her joy, her life, her
sun. But believe me when I say, it was the worst punishment she
could ever give, worse than any whipping. After Catherine, she fed
me, and put me in clothes, but she never looked at me again. In her
mind, I was erased.
Of course, it wasn’t just me. Everyone in the family suffered. Mother
completely surrendered to misery and grief. She drank, Will, did they
ever tell you that? She drank, she raged, she was violent. Witches
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150
are terrifying when they go mad. Have you ever seen her when her
eyes go all black? It was all Father could do, taking care of her, and
even he didn’t always manage. Someday, when this is all over, ask
him what really happened to his leg. They probably told you it was a
fall from a horse. It wasn’t.
That was about the time when Uncle Royce started staying long
weekends at the house to help with us boys, and help Father. The
other boys resented him coming in, because they’d all figured out
how to shift for themselves, in their own ways. Argus has always had
a soft spot for Laddie, and will always keep him under his wing. Nate
has always felt more brotherhood for horses than humans. But no
one wanted anything to do with me. No one except Uncle Royce. He
thought I was worth paying attention to. I don’t blame him at all for
what happened. I would lay down my life for him to this day.
I am very sorry for the tiny writing.
Ben
Will wasn’t aware that he’d fallen asleep until he woke in a blank
panic, from a bad dream he could not remember. His first impulse was
to feel for the gold certificates to make sure they were safe. Then he
remembered they were down the front of Jenny’s dress. Dammit, he
wished she’d never even shown them to him!
Throwing off the thin blanket, he climbed out of bed. Whatever
the dream had been about, it had left him antsy and profoundly uneasy. The steam radiator had heated up and then some; the small room
was now hot as a Turkish bathhouse, and the damp heat had caused
a decade of unpleasant odors to ooze from the walls. He loosened
his collar, sweating. Going to the door, he rattled the knob, reassured
himself that it was securely locked. He paced under the grimy orange
light of the single bulb. The night was dead still. He was surprised at
how quiet it was. Even in the middle of California there was always
some sound filtering in—but here they were in the heart of a huge
city, with a train station right across the street, and the silence was so
perfect it almost hummed.
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He paused by the side of the bed and looked down at Jenny. She
was sleeping peacefully, her face soft and lovely. That one curl, the
one that always escaped from her pins, curved across her cheek. He
was reaching down to gently put it back in place when pain, sudden
and sharp, bent him double. He clutched at his head as nausea knifed
through him.
William Wordsworth Edwards!
Will staggered back from the bed, moaning involuntarily.
It was Ma’am. Sending for him.
The amount of pain associated with one of Ma’am’s Sends was
directly related to how mad she was. And boy, was she ever mad.
What on earth do you think you’re doing?
Each needle of pain that flared inside his head was associated with
strange visions: fires, earthquakes, tornadoes. Monstrously destructive
forces of nature. Will cringed at the force of magic flowing through
his mind.
What have you gotten that sweet Jenny Hansen into? Where
have the two of you gone? If you’ve laid a finger on her, boy, I
will murder you!
Will gritted his teeth and tried to hold his mind closed against
the onslaught. He breathed deeply and steadily. He knew that while
the magic was very painful, there wasn’t as much force behind it as it
seemed. Ma’am would never use enough magic to cause real damage.
This was a beating with a wooden spoon, intended to frighten more
than harm.
Pask de la Guerra tried to cover for you, but he told us everything in the end. Where did you get the money to buy his car? It
didn’t come from your father’s cash, so where?
Trying to block his mother’s keening inquisition from his mind was
like trying to plug his ears against the sound of a bandsaw.
Mr. Hansen cabled us about your appaling behavior in San
Francisco. He said you picked up Jenny and ran away from him!
Can you imagine what he thinks?
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So the cat was out of the bag. Or rather, the cat was in the bag,
along with a whole bunch of other angry cats. Will had known that
he was going to have to face the consequences of their elopement, but
somehow he’d hoped they might take a little longer in arriving.
Where are you?
The question was blasted with more force than anything that had
come before it, and it almost compelled Will to scream the answer aloud.
Don’t think about Detroit, he commanded himself. Then he realized
that he was thinking about Detroit. God, he hoped it wouldn’t leak
through to Ma’am.
I expect you’re on your way to Detroit.
Will muttered a curse, but then realized it hardly required mindreading to guess his destination. And his family would follow him—
and even if they didn’t care about getting him back, they would care
about getting Jenny. Their only hope was to get to Tesla Industries,
hide behind the company’s powerful veil of secrecy. That’s what Ben
had advised him, Will remembered. Ben had said it was his only hope.
Young man, I hope you realize that your father and I—not
to mention Mr. Hansen!—aren’t just going to take this kind of
foolishness lying down!
Suddenly, Will remembered something else Ben had written.
You’ve got to be willing to hurt yourself.
Will staggered over to the steam radiator. He held Ben’s words in
his head like a shield against Ma’am’s keening.
It’s got to hurt and hurt bad.
If you don’t contact us immediately and tell us that you’re
bringing Jenny home ...
Steam at atmospheric pressure was 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Will
remembered this random fact as he pressed his forearm against the
hot steel. Tears sprung to his eyes as fresh pain, stronger pain, surged
through him.
And, miraculously, the screeching in his head subsided almost instantaneously. It vanished with a whimper, like a barking dog squirted
with a hose.
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Exhausted, Will sat on the floor, cradling his burnt arm. He wondered if he’d hurt Ma’am. He didn’t want to. He just wanted her to
stop shrieking at him.
Suddenly, he felt angry. He and Jenny had every right to do what
they’d done. It was Jenny’s money, and she got to decide what she
wanted to do with it! And he got to make choices about his life too, just
like Ben had said in his letter.
Still cradling his arm, he crawled back into bed next to Jenny. He
breathed in her smell of long-ago hyacinth soap, new wool, gritty red
Otherwhere dust.
“We’ve made it to Detroit,” he murmured to her, closing his eyes.
He knew she wouldn’t hear. Maybe he said it for his own benefit. “I
don’t know what you’re planning, and I don’t want to know. You get
to make your own choices just like I get to make mine. That’s what
Detroit means. It’s like what you told me about that silver dollar. It’s
more than just what it is. And we’re here.”
And then, finally, arm aching, Will fell asleep.
Chapter Eight
Signed in Blood
Detroit, Michigan
T
he next morning, a firm knock on the door startled Will from a deep
sleep. Dislodging his arm from beneath Jenny’s head, he noticed
she’d drooled all over his sleeve. The honeymoon was over, he thought
blearily. He’d sure gotten the short end of that stick.
The knock came at the door again, louder, and Will stumbled
across the room. Before opening the door, he rolled his undrooled-on
sleeve down over the arm he had burned the night before; the place
where he’d pressed it against the hot radiator was burned shiny-red,
edged with small blisters.
Waiting on the doorstep was a strange disheveled man. He was in
his mid-fifties, Will guessed, with thick, wild, uncombed hair and an
air of notable distraction, as if there was something just outside his
field of vision that he was desperately trying to see. But his clothes,
despite being untidy, looked well-made and expensive; he did not seem
to be one of the hotel’s seedy traveling salesmen.
“Can I help you?” Will asked, rubbing his eyes.
“I’m Grigory Grigoriyev,” the man announced in a very loud voice.
He had a pronounced Russian accent, yet he clearly strove to speak
with precision. “You can call me Grig, everyone else does. I have come
to collect you and your ... wife.” He said “wife” with special emphasis.
“Oh! Mr. Grigoriyev! I mean ... Grig.” Will stood up straighter and
attempted to look respectable. “I’m sorry! I ... I wasn’t expecting you.”
Signed in Blood
155
“I asked for you specially, you know!” said Grig, sounding oddly
put out.
“Yes, I know,” said Will. “Mr. Waters told me.”
“Waters is a good man,” Grig spoke with great intensity, as if the
pronouncement on the character of Will’s mentor at the Polytechnic
was to be the last statement he would ever make on the subject. He
looked past Will, frowning. “Is your wife in there?”
“Yes,” Will said. “But she’s not awake yet.” Then, aware that the
conversation had proceeded quite a ways without an answer to the
obvious question, “... and, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you
find us here, anyway?”
“Jepson told me,” Grig spat the name with venom. “That lazy goodfor-nothing janitor who sent you here. He’s always sending people here
who don’t know any better. The owner buys him beer for his trouble.
But it’s not his trouble. It’s the trouble of the people who have to stay
here. This place is not clean. It is the kind of place one goes when one
does not want other people to hear screaming.”
Will wasn’t quite sure what to say to that disturbing description.
He chose a safe route. “I would appreciate any assistance you could
give us in finding a better place, sir. We’re very anxious to get settled,
and I’m very anxious to get started.”
“We have taken care of all of that,” said Grig. “You, of course,
cannot live in the dormitory on the compound, as would otherwise be
customary. So we have obtained an apartment for you and your wife.
It is a good place near where you will be working. Very clean. It is the
same building I, myself, live in, so we will be able to walk together. We
have seen to every particular. Mr. Tesla won’t stand for anything else.”
Will was relieved. “All right,” he said, happy for once to place his
fate in someone else’s capable hands.
“I will wait for you and your wife downstairs,” Grig said, attempting one last time to look past Will into the hotel room. “I will drive you
both over. Please don’t be long.”
Will closed the door and found that Jenny was awake.
“Who was that?”
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“That was my mentor, Mr. Grigoriyev,” said Will. “Except I’m just
supposed to call him Grig. The janitor told him we were here. He’s
waiting to give us a ride to our new apartment.”
Jenny’s shoulders slumped in relief. “If I never see this place again
it will be too soon,” she said, with a shiver.
Grig waited for them in front of the hotel, leaning against a handsome burgundy-colored Atlas Model H, staring up at the building as
if it were personally offensive to him. As Will and Jenny emerged, he
turned his scrutiny on them, paying particular attention to Jenny. They
must have made a strange looking pair; Will with his lumpy toolbag
and ill-fitting suit and Jenny in her modish new outfit still caked with
red Otherwhere dust.
In the bright light of morning, their motoring dusters were just as
insufficient against the winter chill as they had been the night before.
Grig, who was wearing a heavy woolen overcoat, helped Jenny into the
back seat and, with pronounced chivalry, arranged a motoring blanket
over her lap. He then gestured for Will to get into the front seat as he
climbed into the driver’s seat on the right. It was a gasoline machine,
so Will was rather surprised that Grig hadn’t left it running; he’d have
to go around to the front and crank-start the car, never an enjoyable
task. But Grig did not. He just toggled a switch, and the car engine
cranked and roared to life.
“Hey, an electric starter!” Will exclaimed. “Nifty!”
“Child’s play,” Grig sniffed. “And yet the automobile manufacturers around here want nothing to do with it! Henry Ford especially. He
has a significant lack of imagination.” He steered the car away from
the curb, adding: “We have had some gratifying interest from the men
at Cadillac, however.”
The streets of Detroit were made of tightly-laid red brick, bright
and cold and clean. The main thoroughfares were immaculately kept,
with snow and manure piled along the gutters for later removal. Grig
turned the car up Woodward, and as they passed the famous Campus
Martius and the grand City Hall, he noted their existence with bland
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indifference. Clearly, he considered this the extent of his duties to provide a civic welcome, for he offered nothing more. They turned onto a
broad causeway that ran northwest with ruler-straight precision. Will
caught a sign, held the words in his mind: Grand River Avenue.
Grand River Avenue was the widest street he’d ever seen, much
less ridden on, with two lanes of traffic in each direction and streetcars clank-clanging down the middle. The bulk of the traffic lumbered
along slowly—heavy, horse-drawn wagons that kept to the side. But it
was the automobiles—dozens upon dozens, more common here than
anywhere Will had ever seen—that gave the avenue its air of hectic
modernity.
Grig did not speak again until after they had been driving for
quite some time, and then it was to comment apologetically: “The
Compound is rather a ways from downtown, I’m afraid.” But even
though they drove and drove—a mile, two miles from the city’s downtown core, the urban congestion hardly thinned. And Will didn’t notice the distance, or even Grig’s comment on it; there was so much to
take in. He’d thought Stockton, California’s hub of manufacture and
commerce, impressive—but Detroit!
About three miles up Grand River Avenue, they turned onto a
narrow side-street lined with newly-built homes. Grig brought the automobile to a stop before a building that bore a small brass sign that
read “Winslow Street Apartments.” It was a new building, so new that
its white stone walls had not yet become grimed with factory smoke.
The tiled apartment entryway was neat as a pin. Grig led them
into a common sitting room, which was decorated with a few brightly
colored religious icons. A small window garden of carefully-tended
geraniums and flowering winter cactuses was arranged in the bay sill.
A woman was waiting for them there. She was small and spruce,
with a smooth unreadable face. Across her lap was spread a knitting
project of inexpressible complexity.
“I have brought them, Mrs. Kosanovic!” Grig announced in a
loud voice, as if reporting a military victory.
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Mrs. Kosanovic carefully laid her knitting aside—all fifty needles
and eighty-five skeins of it—and rose with regal slowness. She shook
Will’s hand gravely, and inclined her head in Jenny’s direction.
“We are pleased to have you,” she said, her voice tinged with an
accent similar to Grig’s. But it was clear that Grig did not intend the
greeting to be an extended one, as he glanced impatiently at his pocket
watch and made a noise of extreme discontent.
“Ten already! For heaven’s sake, this will not do! We must go, Mr.
Edwards. Your wife and Mrs. Kosanovic can see to the details of the
apartment. Come!”
Jenny hopped up to kiss Will goodbye, the very picture of an attentive new wife. But as she straightened his tie, her true intentions were
made clear. “They’re going to ask about the Flume,” she whispered
low in his ear. “Remember ... two weeks to rebuild it, at the very least!
Understand? You made me a promise!”
“Promise,” said Will, taking advantage of the ruse to give Jenny a
peck on the cheek. She blushed as she turned away.
“He must have a coat,” Mrs. Kosanovic stated, flatly. “Niko will not
be pleased if he catches the Influenza. Give him one of yours, Grig.”
Will was surprised at the tone of command in the landlady’s voice.
He was even more surprised at Grig’s meek compliance. Gesturing
for Will to follow, Grig led him upstairs to the second floor, where he
opened the door an apartment at the front of the building overlooking
the street.
Will was surprised that Grig’s apartment seemed utterly unlived
in. There was nothing in it other than the furnishings, which were
solid, new, and unassuming. A couple of suitcases rested by the door,
and as Grig fetched him an overcoat from the closet, Will noticed that
there were far more empty coat-hangers than coats. Will’s curiosity got
the better of him.
“Why, it looks like you just moved in as well!”
“For the past decade, I have lived in the dormitory on the
Compound with the apprentices. It is standard practice for all of Mr.
Tesla’s research associates.” He handed the coat to Will, who shrugged
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it on gratefully. “But given the unusual circumstances surrounding
your arrival, he felt it best that I take up residence here.”
Will was shocked, but said nothing—could say nothing, as he was
entirely at a loss for words. The man who was to be his mentor had
been required to uproot his life, for him? Just because he’d showed up
married? Gee! He really hadn’t expected the company’s reaction to
be this extreme. And what would happen if they found out it was all a
ruse? Will shuddered inwardly at the thought. Well, they could never
know. That was all.
It was a short walk from the apartment building to Will’s first
glimpse of “Fort Tesla”—or at least, of the heavy, fifteen-foot-tall
fence of black wrought iron that surrounded it. A neatly trimmed boxwood hedge was planted along the fence’s inside perimeter, its dense
evergreen foliage reaching to the top of the iron bars and confounding
any attempt to see the buildings within.
“The Compound covers a full twenty acres,” said Grig, as they
walked along Sullivan Street toward the main iron gates—huge, ornate,
rendered in a strikingly modern style. The design featured geometrically-dissected circles, lightning bolts, and broadcasting towers—symbols
of the technological advancements upon which Nikola Tesla had built
one of the greatest fortunes of the new century. The gates were huge, to
allow for trucks to pass in and out of the compound, and faced directly
onto a long street.
“That is Piquette Avenue,” Grig said, gesturing down the street.
“There are many car factories along that way.” As he was saying this,
Will noticed a young man standing on the corner behind a handlettered sign propped up against a hydrant. Grig added loudly, “And
some lazy bums should go and bother them, instead of us!”
The young man, being thus addressed, smiled slightly, but said
nothing. He was slender and wiry, dressed in an irregular assemblage
of seemingly-scavenged workingman’s clothes. He had coal-black hair
and dark eyes. His sign, Will saw, read “One Big Union” and featured
a hand-drawn picture of an alarmed-looking black cat.
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“Mornin’, Mr. Grigoriyev.” The young man spoke with a bright,
brassy twang, eyeing Will. “Fresh meat for the grinder?” He tried to
hand Will some literature, but Grig slapped it out of his hand with
a venomous curse and pushed Will along the sidewalk toward the
gatehouse.
“Damn Wobblies! That one has taken it upon himself to serve as
our own personal social conscience. I don’t know why he has decided
to enlighten our little corner of the world, but Mr. Tesla despises him.”
At the gatehouse, Grig exchanged some words with the gatekeeper.
And then, less than twenty-four hours since he’d left California, Will
was inside “Fort Tesla.”
Inside the Compound, space seemed to expand. The access roads
and sidewalks, laid out with geometric exactitude, bisected fields of
open parkland, dotted with trees.
“I am sure I do not need to recite the history of Tesla Industries
to you,” Grig began, as they walked briskly along a precisely angled
pathway, “but the recital to our new apprentices has become second
nature to me, so I beg your indulgence. I myself began with the original
company—Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing—when Mr. Tesla
formed it in ‘86. It was his pioneering work in wireless broadcasting,
developing the World Wireless System, that secured his fortune and
gave him the ability to build the model industrial compound you now
stand within.”
“To your left, you will see the Teslaphone manufacturing plant.”
Grig gestured to the building as they passed it. It was very large, with
small high glass windows that sparkled in the bright morning light.
The factory hummed with activity, and through the open doors of the
building’s large loading bay Will could glimpse hundreds of factory
workers in pristine white uniforms. “Naturally, it is the closest building
to the main gate, for it is kept in constant operation.”
Behind the plant, deeper within the enclosure, were many more tidy
little buildings, neatly tucked in among the groomed parkland. Will’s attention was captivated by one building in particular, which appeared to
sit right in the very center of the compound—an appearance reinforced
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by the fact that a broad paved roadway ringed it like a moat, with smaller
roadways radiating outward like spokes from a hub.
“That is the executive building, where Mr. Tesla has his personal
living quarters and laboratory,” Grig said. “A lovely building, is it not?
It was done by Stanford White, designer of the famous Wardenclyffe
tower on Long Island, the first of the many thousands of Tesla Towers
across the United States that make up the World Wireless System.”
Grig ended the exposition with a curt wave of his hand. “You will
likely never go in there.”
Grig made a special point of indicating the apprentices’ dormitories as they passed them, and his tone suggested that it was still a
matter of some irritation that Will would not be living in them.
“As I believe I have mentioned, all of the other apprentices live
within the Compound,” he said. “And of course, during the term of
their apprenticeship, they are not allowed to venture outside these
walls except under the most extraordinary of circumstances. But Mr.
Tesla has arranged for the ample satisfaction of every wholesome need
a young man could possibly have. We have a very good cafeteria—all
vegetarian, of course, Mr. Tesla would no sooner allow dead animal
flesh through the gates than he would a woman. Over there is the
moving-picture theater—no Edison films, as Mr. Tesla has no wish
to further line the pockets of an unethical cad. You’ll be pleased to
learn, however, that Mr. Tesla has agreed to bend the rules for the new
Dreadnought Stanton film. If he hadn’t, our young men surely would
have rioted. We have a lovely little Buddhist temple we use for our
daily meditation exercises. And of course, we have a barber ...” Grig
gave Will’s shaggy hair and stubbly cheek a reproachful look. “You
could certainly do with a visit to the barber, Mr. Edwards.”
Finally, Grig came to a stop before a long low building, set back
from the sidewalk in a neatly trimmed bower of foliage. The number
three was prominently displayed on the front door.
“This is my building,” said Grig. “Which is to say, it has been given
to my team for our exclusive use. Here you will be working.”
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When they stepped inside, it was clear that this really was Grig’s
building, for everyone greeted him with great deference, starting with
a man Grig introduced as Mr. Hahn, the department’s secretary.
“Good morning, Mr. Grigoriyev,” Mr. Hahn said, taking Grig’s
coat and showing Will where to hang his. “I will let Legal know that
you have arrived.”
Then Grig led Will into the main room of Building Three. And
instantly, Will knew that despite every questionable thing he’d done
to get to Detroit—lying to his parents, scheming with Jenny to get her
inheritance, running away from Mr. Hansen—it had all been worth it.
He’d made the right choice. Before him was the biggest, best equipped
physics lab he’d ever seen. There seemed to be literally acres of the
most up-to-date, advanced scientific equipment, and it all gleamed
as if it had just been unwrapped. The lab in Building Three made
the lab in which Will had worked at the Polytechnic—even the lab at
Berkeley—look like a couple of cracker-barrel country stores compared to the Emporium on Market Street.
A dozen young men were working at desks around the room. They
were all very trim and neat, wearing freshly-pressed suits beneath their
rubber aprons and sleeve protectors. They all looked as if they took full
advantage of the Compound’s barber on a regular basis. And while
the workroom was enormous, all these young men occupied just one
half of it. The other half held but one desk, several worktables, and
an absolutely enormous machine that was clearly in an ongoing stage
of construction. Stopping before it, Grig laid a tender hand on its side.
“This is my project,” he said, stroking the machine’s metal flank as
if it was a living thing. “You will be primarily assisting me on my work
with this. I haven’t come up with a name for it.” He peered at Will
appraisingly. “Good at coming up with names, are you?”
Will shrugged. “Never really tried it.” He paused. “What does it
do?”
Grig smirked and laid a finger alongside his nose. “Doesn’t do anything yet. It’s what I hope it will do that’s important. But if I start explaining that to you now we’ll never meet the rest of the apprentices.”
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Briskly, Grig led Will from one desk to the next. All the other apprentices were all much older than Will—some in their mid-twenties,
even. This confirmed the rumor that Tesla Industries usually recruited
college men for their apprenticeship program. Most of the other apprentices welcomed Will with polite indifference. There was only one
really friendly greeting, and that came from a young man who Grig
introduced as Mr. Courtenay. Mr. Courtenay had an exceptionally
messy desk. It was stacked high with papers and dissertations and
theses. Interspersed among these were several expensively-framed pictures of Marie Curie. As the friendly young man pumped Will’s hand,
he said: “Quick—why is the sky blue?”
Will knit his brow, taking a moment to try to grasp the relevance
of the question. Was he trying to impress Marie Curie or something?
Finally, Will suggested: “Because it’s not red?”
“Critical opalescence,” the young man said eagerly, digging into
his pile of papers and withdrawing a dogeared thesis that he shoved
into Will’s hands. “I’ve just been reading up on it, and it’s fascinating.
Feel free to borrow anything else that catches your fancy, I’m happy
to share.”
“Mr. Courtenay—we call him Court—is a great appreciator of
the work of Mr. Einstein,” Grig commented, as they left his desk and
proceeded on their tour. Will clutched the bound document against his
chest, overwhelmed but encouraged.
His next encounter, however, was less encouraging. In fact, the
young German to whom he was introduced—Mr. Roher—was downright hostile.
“So. You are to be Grig’s pet engineer.” Roher did not bother to
rise from his office chair or even take Will’s outstretched hand. He was
short and quite fat, and his face was so unpleasant that it made Will
wonder if this was why Grig had asked if he were fat. Two unpleasant
fat men in one department would certainly not be an ideal situation.
“Max is a theoretical physicist, so naturally he looks down on us
humble engineers,” Grig chuckled.
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“It was not my intent to insult engineers, Mr. Grigoriyev,” Roher
said, lifting an eyebrow. “Only pets.”
“Now, Max,” Grig said, with an indulgent sigh. “Do try to be a
bit more accommodating. Mr. Edwards will be taking the desk next to
yours, and it won’t do to get off on the wrong foot.”
Rolling his eyes, Roher threw down his pen with pronounced annoyance. “Babysitting? Really?”
“I believe you will find everything you need,” Grig said to Will,
ignoring Roher’s outburst. “Anything you don’t have, you can request
from Mr. Hahn.” He smirked. “Or you can always ask Mr. Roher, of
course.”
“Don’t bother asking me anything,” said Roher, picking up his pen
and glaring down at the papers he’d been working on. But Grig laid a
soft hand on his shoulder.
“Just a moment, Max,” he said. “I want you to see this. Mr.
Edwards has been working on something that I think you will find very
interesting. It is his improved Otherwhere Conductor that I was telling
you about. Mr. Edwards, I believe you call it a Flume?”
Will’s heart leapt into his throat. He considered lying, saying that
he’d left it at the apartment ... but that would only forestall the inevitable. He reached into his vest where the lumpy cigar box still rested.
“About that ...” Will began. “There’s been a problem.”
Will laid the cigar box on the desk and lifted the lid, revealing
the tangle of burnt wiring within. “I’m afraid bringing it through the
Dimensional Subway was a mistake.”
An infuriating smirk curled Roher’s lips as he peered inside the
box. Grig’s face, however, remained impassive.
“I expect it was the result of incompatible Otherwhere Embedding,”
Will offered, as the men peered inside the box. Roher poked at the wiring with a disdainful finger. “I guess it resulted in an episode of Critical
Interactive Resonance.”
“Of course it was, and of course it did,” Roher sniffed. “You easily could have protected the mechanism against an overload of that
type, you know. There’s a very handy little gizmo you’d do well to
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familiarize yourself with, Mr. Edwards. It’s called a fuse. Maybe you
can get one of the dollar-a-day line-workers in the Teslaphone plant
to explain the concept to you.”
Will reddened with embarrassment, but refused to rise to the bait.
Quietly he shut the lid on the Flume.
“Never mind,” Grig said. “There’s plenty of time. You can rebuild
the prototype, of course?”
“Yes,” Will said. “It will take me ... a couple of weeks, probably.
But I can get started right away, if you’d like me to.”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” said Grig. “I’ve seen and heard
enough to know that you can, and that is sufficient. At the moment, I
have a far greater need for your personal assistance on my own project. I think you will find it very interesting.”
“Would you like me to throw this away for you?” Roher smirked,
tapping the scorch-marked lid of the cigar box. “If there’s one thing I
am glad to help you find, it’s the ashcan. I imagine you’ll be needing
to use it quite a lot.”
Clenching his teeth, Will continued to pointedly ignore Roher’s
barbs ... though he was growing unhappier with his assignment of
desk mates by the moment.
Mr. Hahn, Grig’s secretary, came up behind them.
“Mr. Grigoriyev, Legal just rang. They’re ready for you to bring
Mr. Edwards over.”
Grig sighed. “Paperwork. The bane of human existence. Come,
Mr. Edwards. We shall make this quick.”
Emerging from Building Three, they discovered that it had grown
colder and the sky was clotted with gathering snow clouds. Will was
once again glad for the overcoat his mentor had lent him. They walked
briskly to another building. It was not numbered; instead, a sign by the
front door read, in thin modern letters of chrome, Corporate Offices.
After negotiating receptionists, assistants, and even an elevator,
they arrived at a large corner office. The placard on the door read
“George Jovanovic, Chief Counsel”
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The office’s occupant was an older man, balding, with a round
belly and skinny legs. He wore a very flashy vest, which did not surprise Will, for it was his experience that only balding men with round
bellies and skinny legs—or lawyers—ever went in for vests like that.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Edwards,” said Jovanovic, shaking Will’s
hand heartily. Then he wagged a finger at Grig. “Is it true you’ve already been showing him around Building Three? Before he’s signed
his paperwork? Tsk tsk, Grig.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, let’s just get this over with,” Grig muttered,
taking a seat. “Never were we so plagued by lawyers in the old days! We
all have much more important things to do, Mr. Edwards included.”
“The formalities must be observed!” the lawyer sounded hurt on
behalf of the formalities, as if the formalities were a small kitten constantly being abused. Retrieving a freshly-typed stack of papers from
his desk, he slid on a pair of half-moon glasses and peered down at
them.
“Now, Mr. Edwards, we sent you the boilerplate apprenticeship
contract with the acceptance letter, but given your irregular circumstances we had to make a few adjustments.” He looked at Will over the
top of his glasses. “Am I to understand that you brought a wife with
you?”
Will nodded. Jovanovic’s eyes lit with amusement as he touched a
place on the page. “Good thing we took out the celibacy clause then,
isn’t it?”
“Celibacy clause?” Will said.
“It was all very clearly stated in the boilerplate we sent you,”
Jovanovic said, and Will’s embarrassment burned afresh. “All interns
must agree to remain pure and chaste for the term of their association
with Tesla Industries.”
“Mr. Tesla believes that by refraining from intimate physical congress, one can channel one’s mental activities to a higher plane.” Grig
stated all of this with textbook flatness. “Meditation is also involved.”
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“In any case, we have stricken that clause.” Jovanovic smiled again.
“I trust you will meditate a little bit harder, Mr. Edwards, to make up
the difference.”
Jovanovic turned over the sheaves to another place on the contract.
“Another irregularity ... as the result of your matrimonial state,
arrangements have been made for you to live off the Compound. I’m
sure Grig has told you how exceptional this is. I have revised the language surrounding punishments for leaving the Compound, items of
that nature ... but I have also added some new language about not
leaving the Compound unless you are accompanied by Grig. He will
walk you to and from work every morning.”
Will looked at Grig, raising his eyebrows. Grig gave him a soothing
smile, much as he had given Roher.
“It is a peculiarity of Mr. Tesla’s,” he said mildly. “He fears for the
mental purity and physical cleanliness of his workers, especially his
apprentices, who are younger and more impressionable. He would like
our program to be like ... well, he thinks of it rather like a monastery.
A monastery of brilliant young men, working toward the achievement
of science’s noblest aims.”
Will absorbed this. Finally, drawing a deep breath, he said: “Mr.
Grigoriyev, Mr. Jovanovic—I didn’t come to Detroit to see the sights. I
came to work and to learn. I swear to abide by any restriction.”
Both Grig and Jovanovic seemed amply pleased by that response.
Jovanovic, particularly, smiled even more broadly.
“Well! That is the kind of attitude we like here at Tesla Industries.
We needn’t bother going over the rest of these changes, then. It is
good to know that you understand that we have your best interests
at heart. So, let’s get these signed, and you and Grig can get back to
work.” Retrieving the signature page from the end of the stack of papers, he laid it on top then squared the papers neatly. Then he opened
his desk drawer and withdrew something small wrapped in a sanitary
cardboard wrapper. From the wrapper he extracted a small steel razor
blade that glinted in the light.
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“You expect me to sign in blood?” Will wanted to be accommodating, but he could not keep the surprise from his voice. He was aware
that many companies, especially old- fashioned ones that still trafficked in magic, required such a soul-binding signature on contracts
of importance. But Will hardly expected it from a company with the
kind of modern, progressive reputation that Tesla Industries had.
“I assure you, Mr. Tesla would prefer that our contracts not be
signed using bodily fluids,” said Jovanovic. “But it is a corporate necessity that I have prevailed upon him to accept. You may cut your finger
yourself, or I can do it for you. I promise you, I am quite good at it.”
Will remembered Jenny’s admonitions.”I think perhaps I should
look these over,” he said, haltingly. “May I sign them tomorrow?”
Grig and Jovanovic exchanged glances. Jovanovic’s cheerful demeanor clouded.
“We did send you the boilerplate with the acceptance letter,” he
said. “And you did have ample time to review that, didn’t you?”
Will gulped. “Uh ... sure. Of course. But the changes ...”
“The changes really are insubstantial,” Jovanovic interjected curtly. “And you have already seen the inside of Building Three.”
“That is my fault,” said Grig. “You mustn’t hold Mr. Edwards
responsible—”
“Nonetheless, he has already seen more of Tesla Industries than
Mr. Tesla would allow anyone to see without signing a non-disclosure
agreement, at the very least.” Jovanovic pointed out. He sighed before
adding, “Also, there is an additional complication.”
“An additional complication?”
“I don’t know if Grig has told you, but there have been urgent inquiries about you. Inquiries which give us very significant legal pause.”
Will’s blood chilled. “Inquiries?”
“Your professor at the Polytechnic, Mr. Waters, telephoned me
yesterday, asking about you,” Grig hastily explained. “Your people
back home are demanding that you be returned to them immediately. It seems that not everyone is pleased about you taking this
apprenticeship.”
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Will flushed, humiliated. Goddamn it. He knew his parents were
looking for him, but he hadn’t imagined they would contact Mr.
Waters, contact Tesla Industries—suggest that he should be dragged
home like a truant schoolboy playing hooky in the pool-hall! It was just
plain mortifying.
“I’m eighteen years old!” Indignation burned under Will’s collar.
“I have every right to come here. My people back home don’t have
anything to say about it.”
“Absolutely you do,” Grig said, encouragingly. “That’s the spirit!”
“By signing the contract, you empower us to respond to these inquiries on your behalf, should your parents decide to pursue the matter more ... forcefully,” said Jovanovic. “Once you formalize your legal
relationship with Tesla Industries, we will handle everything.”
“Fine,” Will said, snatching the shining little razor blade.
Jovanovic took out a dish and a bottle labeled “Haycraft Leech
Saliva”—a substance that would allow the blood to flow as freely as
regular ink. The lawyer put several drops from the bottle into the dish
and passed it over the desk to Will. Will cut his finger and let the drops
fall into the dish. Jovanovic gave Will a steel-nibbed pen. Will signed
the contract. Once he was finished, the lawyer blew on the signature
to dry it, then squared the papers.
“We’ll have a copy certified for you, Mr. Edwards,” he said. Then
he went to his desk drawer and withdrew another small, glittering
thing. He showed it to Will—it was a small pin, like a tie tack, enameled in black and red with the lightning bolt design that featured so
prominently in all of Tesla Industries designs.
“Your Tesla Industries Identification Badge.” The lawyer pinned
this to Will’s lapel, smoothed the fabric. “Take care with that, Mr.
Edwards. It’s a mark of distinction.” Then he dusted his hands and
nodded at Grig. “He’s all yours.”
“Excellent,” Grig said, beaming. “Let’s get to work.”
And work they did. In his first day, Will ate a vegetarian lunch
in the gleaming white cafeteria, copied several dozen pages of Grig’s
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notes—still not quite succeeding in comprehending the exact nature
of the project he was working on—rewired a faulty magnetometer that
none of the other apprentices had had time to fix, and was informed
by Roher that he’d decided to nickname Will “blockhead.”
The short winter day purpled into frostbitten evening. Near dinnertime, Grig had been called into an urgent conference with Mr. Tesla.
In his absence, Court was tasked with giving Will a more thorough
tour of the Compound. Will was disappointed in Court’s perfunctory
discharge of these duties, especially the slapdash tour of the power
plant with its massive Tesla Coils. Court was much more interested
in getting to the end of the tour—a secret spot where the apprentices
went to smoke. Pushing aside some branches in the tall laurel hedge,
his guide led him to a cleared-out hollow, made more comfortable by
the addition of some empty crates that bore the mark of a scientific
instrument company in Chicago.
“Smoking is absolutely forbidden inside the Compound,” Court
warned, as he pulled out a paper packet of cigarettes. “You just let
Niko catch you at it and see what happens.” Lighting up, he blew
smoke over the hedge. He offered Will one, but Will waved it away—
he’d never picked up the habit, and if Tesla didn’t like it he didn’t want
to. “But don’t worry, Grig watches out for all of us. He’s like a mother
hen. You’re lucky to have gotten on this team. We’re the best in the
whole compound.”
“So there are other groups?” Will asked. Court nodded.
“Three total,” he said. “Mr. Tesla has a mania for the number
three. He does everything in threes, or multiples thereof. If you ever
have to help Grig with a report intended for Mr. Tesla, make sure you
never send it up with an even number of section headings.” He looked
regretful, as if freshly reliving some painful section-heading related
mishap. Then, having worked through the trauma, he took another
drag on his cigarette and continued.
“Now, my personal area of expertise is geophysics,” Court said. “I
was recruited because Tesla’s big project right now is using the resonant frequencies of the earth to transmit electric power wirelessly.”
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“Sounds interesting,” said Will, carefully. Even with Court, who had
been friendly and open, he didn’t feel safe venturing more than that. He’d
been at Tesla Industries less than a day, but already he was feeling wary and
overwhelmed, like he was sure to give the wrong answer at any moment.
Will was not used to being around people who were as smart—and likely
smarter—than he was. It was ... well, it was terrifying, that’s what it was.
Court, perhaps sensing this anxious disquiet, peered at his face in the
gloom.
“You really are just a kid,” he said, wonderingly. “What are you,
fifteen?”
“I’m eighteen,” Will said curtly. “And I’m not a kid.”
“Clearly not, since you’ve got a wife,” Court smirked. “You do
realize that they’re bending over backward for you, right? You must
be hot stuff.”
Will snorted with amusement. If only Court knew how far from
“hot stuff ” he felt like at the moment! But he didn’t say this, and after
a moment of silence, Court took the hint and changed the subject,
leaning in closer to whisper: “So what’s your wife like? Pretty?”
Will frowned at him, waved cigarette smoke away.
“Fine, fine,” Court sighed, leaning back. “You’re not the kind
to kiss and tell, huh? Not going to have any sympathy for us poor
souls trapped behind these iron fences? Well anyway, everyone here is
positively furious that you’ve found a way to get around the celibacy
requirement.”
“Roher already hates me,” Will said.
Court shrugged. “Roher doesn’t hate you because of that. He
hates you because you’re younger than him and quite possibly more
talented, if they want you so bad. Roher’s more interested in physics
than he is in sex.” Court rolled smoke in his mouth, blew a perfect ring
before adding: “And someone who’s more interested in physics than
sex is a dangerous person to have hating you.”
“From his response to my work, I can’t see why he’d hate me,” Will
muttered, still stinging from the embarrassment of not having thought
to put a fuse into his Flume. Adding to the humiliation was the fact
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that Roher had been absolutely right. A simple breaker would have
stopped the overload in its tracks. “Apparently he thinks I’m an idiot.”
“The more Roher acts like you’re an idiot, the more he thinks
you’re a threat,” Court offered, sagely. “You and he share similar specialties, except he’s more theoretical while you’re more practical. He’s
one of the new high-energy physics boys. He’s been trying to figure
out how to entangle the output of multiple Otherwheres to generate
amplitudes of current far greater than any we’re now capable of. But
he hasn’t been able to get past the Connection Drop problem. And
you’re working on that, right?”
Will nodded. Court smiled broadly, clearly amused.
“That’s why Grig called him over to look at that cigar box of
yours. Grig’s always looking for ways to get Roher to work more collaboratively with the other apprentices, and he knows Roher is just
dying to pick your brain. But Grig gives the kraut too much credit, I’m
afraid. Roher’s too proud. He’ll never ask for your help in a million
years. He’ll just sit and stew about the fact that you’ve figured it out
and he hasn’t.”
Will said nothing. It was nice to imagine that he had something
over on Roher. And really, Roher’s intransigence might be the one
thing protecting him from having to share the secrets Jenny had made
him promise not to spill.
But any further confidences between Will and Court would have
to wait for another time, as Grig’s voice, calling their names, rang
through the frosty night air. Court hastily ground out his cigarette and
waved out the fumes. Emerging from their hiding place in the laurel,
they hurried back to Building Three.
The first thing Will discovered was that at Tesla Industries, work
did not follow any kind of regular schedule. The apprentices worked as
long as Grig worked, and Grig worked as long as Tesla worked. Thus,
it was not until nearly nine, after Grig had returned from yet another
meeting with the reclusive genius, that he finally said, “it’s been a long
day, Mr. Edwards, perhaps you’d like to get some rest.” They left the
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other apprentices still hard at work over their desks; Roher shot Will a
sour glare as he followed Grig out.
They walked the short distance back to the apartment under the
pale artic glow of one of the nearby moonlight towers. Will was exhausted and his head was spinning and he wanted nothing more than
to sleep. When he went inside, Mrs. Kosanovic was waiting in the
common room. Her incredibly complicated knitting project seemed
only to have expanded in complexity. As Grig climbed the stairs to his
apartment, Mrs. Kosanovic called to Will.
“I have given you and your wife Number 20. It is on the second
floor, down the hall. You will find her there. Also, a telegraph boy
delivered this.” From her pocket, she retrieved an envelope from the
Western Union Telegraph Company. Before giving it to him, she
added: “Collect.” Will fished in his pocket for a few pieces of silver.
The telegram was addressed to Jenny, and whoever had stuffed the
envelope had left it unsealed. Will paused as he climbed the carpeted
stairs. He had promised himself he’d respect Jenny’s wishes and not
pry into her affairs, but curiosity got the better of him. Sliding the
typed telegram from he envelope, he read:
Received your message. Hart has been informed of your arrival. Waste no time.
Hetty.
Well. That didn’t tell him much. He tucked the telegram back and
moistened the gum, pressing the flap shut.
Number 20 was a corner apartment at the back of the building.
He felt rather silly knocking at the door of what was supposed to be
his own home, but Mrs. Kosanovic hadn’t given him a key. Jenny flung
open the door.
“You’re home!” she said, hugging him and pulling him inside in
one movement. She must have had a bath, for her hair was still damp
and she smelled of steam and Ivory soap. “I thought you’d never
come!”
“I didn’t know if I ever would.” Will looked around the apartment.
It was furnished exactly as Grig’s had been, with solid, new, unassuming furniture. The high ceilings were ornamented with elegant plaster
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reliefs, and the hardwood floors were polished to a gleam. Will emitted
a low whistle.
“Wow,” he said. “Swell.”
“Isn’t it?” Jenny chirped, as she gestured him to follow her down a
short hallway. “I even managed to get two bedrooms. That was heck
to square with Mrs. Kosanovic, let me tell you!”
“How’d you manage?”
Jenny shrugged dismissively. “I just told her we had to have a nursery.” She patted her stomach. “I suggested that the need was urgent
and impending.”
Will threw up his hands. “They’re already upset enough about me
being married!”
“You’re the one who came up with the story in Stockton,” Jenny
reminded him. “And besides, I don’t plan on being pregnant long.
Grieving a miscarriage will be just the thing to make that landlady
leave me alone. I can already tell she’s the nosy type.”
“Jenny Hansen, that’s awful!”
“That’s Mrs. Edwards to you,” Jenny corrected him. “And the
word you’re looking for is brilliant.” She showed him one of the bedrooms through an open door.
“That one’s mine.” There was no doubt that she had commandeered the best for herself. The bedroom was large, and looked out
over the back garden. “The bed is a dream.”
There was no way for Will to confirm the accuracy of Jenny’s
assessment, because all he could see of the bed was piled high with
department store boxes. Clearly, she had managed to keep busy during his day at work. Jenny gave him no time to ask about them as she
steered him across the hall and into the second bedroom.
“This one’s yours.”
The second bedroom was much smaller and its window overlooked
the alleyway that separated the apartment building from its neighbor.
Will raised an eyebrow. “Gee, thanks.”
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“There’s still power in firsties,” Jenny countered, referring to the
old games of marbles they’d used to play. “Besides, just wait until you
see all the wonderful things I got you downtown!”
“Yes, I notice you’ve been spending your inheritance again,” said
Will.
“Oh no, I didn’t spend a dime of my own money,” Jenny’s blue
eyes were wide with innocence. “You’ll be happy to know that the gold
certificates have been safely deposited, so that’s one less thing to worry
about. Now, sit”—she patted the bed—”And close your eyes.”
Will did. Jenny placed something smooth and heavy in his hands.
Opening his eyes, he beheld a small case of fine leather.
“It’s your wedding present,” Jenny smiled. Her cheeks were pink
and she looked slightly embarrassed. “Or, well, maybe a first day at
work present. Something like that.”
Opening it, Will discovered that it was a shaving kit—a very nice
one. The straight razor had a handle of polished tortoiseshell and a
gleaming steel blade. A whole panoply of grooming implements were
neatly tucked in as well; brush and cup, soap and strop, comb and
scissors.
“There’s everything you need to grow a perfectly lovely moustache,” Jenny said. “You’d look good with a moustache.”
Perhaps it was time to grow a moustache, Will thought, remembering what the lawyer had said about his family’s “urgent inquiries.” He
stroked his upper lip thoughtfully but said nothing.
“Also, I took care of your clothing problem.” She opened the
closet, and inside hung three suits so new the creases hadn’t hung out
yet. Will stood to examine them, and noticed a pair of uncomfortablelooking shoes sitting on the closet’s top shelf. He turned as he heard
Jenny pull open a dresser drawer.
“A half-dozen shirts,” she said, showing him the drawer’s neatly
folded contents. “White, of course. I don’t trust men who wear striped
shirts. And linen cuffs and collars. I got you wing collars, is that all
right?”
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Will didn’t answer. Office shirts were not his customary attire, and
he’d certainly never developed a preference for any of the dozens of
types of collars available. It was staggering how he could go from having nothing to having everything—right down to the linen wing collars—provided for him within the space of a day.
“I once asked you if you had any witch in you,” he said, finally. “I
take it back. I should have asked if you had any quartermaster.”
Jenny laughed. “If there’s one thing the daughter of a rich man
knows how to do, it’s shop,” she said. “And believe me, I wasn’t just
shopping for you.”
For the first time, Will noticed that Jenny was wearing a pretty new
gown of chestnut colored wool. And as she led him out to show him
the rest of the apartment, she stopped at the hall closet to show off
her most prized new acquisition; a fur coat, plush and warm, the very
same color as Jenny’s own rich brown curls.
The kitchen was of the modern antiseptic type; white walls, black
and white checked floor tile and glass-fronted cabinets. Jenny clearly
hadn’t found time to shop for groceries, for the icebox contained nothing more than a half-eaten sandwich, wrapped in wax paper. Just off
the kitchen was a breakfast nook with high windows that looked out
over the small back courtyard. Whatever time Jenny hadn’t spent buying clothes or depositing gold certificates she had apparently spent
here. The table was spread with papers—evening newspapers (turned
to the financial sections) and a large leather-bound volume on the
subject of patent law, bearing the fresh stamp of the Detroit Public
Library.
“By the way, what do you mean all this didn’t cost you a dime?”
Will asked.
“I certainly don’t intend to touch those gold certificates for our
day-to-day expenses!” said Jenny. “I stopped in at the National Bank of
Detroit. It turns out your brother Ben was as good as his word.” She went
to her purse and pulled out a small wad of cash. “That’s what’s left. From
here on out, until I get your patent done, you’re footing the bills.”
“Just like a good husband,” Will smiled.
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“Like a good client,” Jenny corrected. “You’ve retained my services. And I promise you, it will be an investment that pays off a
thousand-fold.”
Will counted the money. There wasn’t much, just over two hundred dollars. Then he was surprised at himself. When did he start
thinking of two hundred dollars as ‘not much’? The apartment and
most of his meals would be taken care of by Tesla Industries. As long
as Jenny would be satisfied with the shopping she’d already done, it
was plenty of money to go on. He shook his head as he tucked it away.
He’d been hanging around secretive heiresses too long.
Thinking of heiresses and their secrets made him remember the
telegram Mrs. Kosanovic had given him. Taking it out of his pocket,
he handed it to her without a word. She quickly opened it, scanned it,
nodded. Then she opened her calfskin grip and tucked the telegram
inside. For the moment the little suitcase was opened, Will saw several other envelopes and bundles of paper inside, neatly secured with
rubber bands. She saw him looking and quickly closed the grip and
tucked it under the table.
“So, tell me about your first day. Did they ask about the Flume?
Did you tell them anything?”
“They asked,” said Will, taking a seat at the kitchen table. He
stretched, rubbed his face. “I showed them the burned out wreck, told
them what happened.”
“Told them you’d build a new one?”
Will shrugged. “They said I needn’t bother. Grig said there was
plenty of time. He wants me to work with him on his project.”
Jenny’s eyes narrowed, and she frowned in deep thought. Will was
surprised by this reaction.
“Now what’s wrong?” He threw up his hands. “You wanted me to
stall them, and they’ve been stalled. I thought you’d be pleased!”
“No, something’s not right,” Jenny interjected, concerned. “They
were all very excited to get their hands on you and that Flume. But
now you’re here, and the Flume isn’t working, and they don’t much
care. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
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It didn’t particularly, and Will was about to say so when Jenny
released a little squeal of alarm. She put a hand over her mouth.
“Criminy,” she whispered. “They’re heading you off at the pass.”
Will was utterly lost. “What?”
“What if they’ve already been working on something similar?
Maybe it isn’t finished yet, maybe they’re not ready to submit it for a
patent ... and if you got there first, all the work they’d put into it would
be lost. So they deliberately sent us through the Dimensional Subway,
knowing that it would destroy your prototype.”
“That’s a lot of what-ifs,” Will scoffed. “It’s also possible that they
simply didn’t foresee what would happen, just like I didn’t.”
“Maybe so,” allowed Jenny. “But then again, if that’s the case, why
didn’t they set you to work rebuilding your Flume immediately? They
were so interested in it before.”
Will couldn’t explain that. He thought about Roher—Court had
said that the two of them were pursuing the same lines of research.
Could Roher have come up with something like the Flume? But if
Roher already had the answers, why would he have taken such an
immediate dislike to Will?
Jenny took a deep breath. “Whatever the explanation, it’s a good
thing I got these while I was downtown.” She showed him a box full of
drafting paper, mechanical pencils, India ink, rulers and protractors.
“The man at the scientific supply house said it was everything you’d
need to draw up schematics for a patent.”
“More than enough,” said Will, looking over the extravagant collection. Jenny set the box in his lap.
“Good. We’ll start tonight. We’ll have to work fast!”
“Jenny, I’m exhausted!” Will protested. “A fellow needs his rest!
Besides, drawing up schematics can’t just be done in a couple of
nights.”
“The papers have to be submitted before the end of the year to be
technically filed in 1910 ... and of course all the offices will be closed
the week before Christmas. So we have to send everything off by the
end of next week at the latest.”
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“There’s no way!” Will wailed.
“Where there’s a Will there’s a way!” she said, clearly very pleased
with her own brilliant wit. She put a mechanical pencil into his hand.
“I’ll go put on a pot of coffee.”
It was almost 3 a.m. when Will finally stumbled into bed. As exhausted as he was, there was one last thing he had to do before he
turned off the light. He pulled out Ben’s letter, and discovered that
news—especially in the Edwards family—traveled fast.
Dear Will:
Earlier today, I was notified by the bank in Detroit that the account I
funded on your behalf has been drawn upon, which means you have
arrived. Which is wonderful, and I extend my sincere congratulations. However, I don’t know what to make of the bank’s report that
it was a woman—claiming to be your wife and producing a marriage
certificate to prove it—who came in to withdraw the funds.
I am left wondering just what the holy hell is going on. Who is this
mystery woman? Is she part of a ruse you cooked up to avoid detection? If so, I guess I’m glad that you’re following my advice to “be
careful”—but why, exactly, do you feel the need to be careful with
me?
Here there was a break in the line of the text. It was clear that Ben
had resumed the writing after some passage of time.
Well.
Just got a letter from our mother.
She has explained the situation to me, and I guess I don’t need
to tell you that she is in an all-fired rage. Clearly, you followed my
instructions on how to block her Sending, for the fact that she’s been
unable to reach you is one of the major points of her fury.
What could have possessed you to marry Jenny Hansen? Don’t you
know that’s just added insult to injury? It was one thing for you to
go to Detroit against our parents’ wishes, but at least that was just
a family matter, and they might have pursued it quietly. But now
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you’ve brought D.L. Hansen and all his money into the mix! Don’t
you know how many detectives a timber fortune can buy?
Let me put this plain. You must send Jenny home. Telegraph Mr.
Hansen immediately, tell him where his daughter is, then get the
hell out of the way. And while you’re at it, telegraph me too, and let
me know that you’ve done it, because I won’t be able to rest until I
know that you have.
If you value my advice even a little, please do exactly as I say.
Ben
Will folded the letter away. He lay with his arm over his eyes, the
pressure soothing his headache.
He considered the situation. If he telegraphed Mr. Hansen as Ben
suggested, and let him know where Jenny was, it would indeed take
care of many of the problems currently facing him—Jenny’s worrying
secrecy, her taskmaster ways, the resentment of his fellow apprentices.
It might even placate his parents into calling off their attempts to drag
him home.
A little charge of fury made him frown. Why did his parents insist
on seeing his actions as those of a spoiled child, instead of those of a
man trying to choose his own destiny? Really, they were the ones who
had forced him into this stupid corner. If Father had just let him go to
Tesla Industries as he’d wanted, none of this would have happened.
He wouldn’t have had to make this bargain with Jenny. He wouldn’t be
forced to make this horrible choice—between protecting his own best
interests and being disloyal to her.
He felt very low.
But wasn’t that the true measure of a man, he thought? That he
held to the bargains he made, no matter what? And he had struck a
bargain with Jenny. They’d spit-shaked on it, and she’d held up her
end of the deal in every particular. If he sent her back he would be
acting just like the spoiled child everyone thought he was. A spoiled
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child who’d made a childish mistake and was now trying to avoid a
whipping.
No. He couldn’t give Jenny up, no matter how many problems it
would solve for him. It would be disloyal and unfair. They’d find a way
to make this work. Lay low, avoid anyone who might be looking for
them. D.L. Hansen might be rich, and Father and Ma’am were surely
implacable—but he and Jenny, they were smart. He would stick by her
like she’d stuck by him.
“For better or for worse,” he concluded, and then almost immediately fell asleep.
Chapter Nine
The Scientist’s Apprentice
W
ill’s first week at Tesla Industries was a blur. Having grown up on a
farm, Will was no stranger to hard work and long days, and having
struggled his way to the top of his class at the Polytechnic, he knew
how taxing intense mental activity could be. But the level of effort
required of him at Tesla Industries was orders of magnitude beyond
anything he’d ever experienced.
His first challenge had been simply comprehending what Grig’s
enormous uncompleted machine, hunkering like a steel behemoth
in one half of Building Three, was built to do. Grig, always running
from meeting to meeting, had shoved reams of schematics and wiring diagrams into Will’s hands (as if that should be sufficient for Will
to decipher the machine’s function) but it wasn’t until after lunch on
Tuesday that Grig finally had time to explain it to him.
“As you know, Will, one of the great challenges we Otherwhere
Engineers face is the limited number of Golden Dimensions,” Grig
began. Will nodded, knowing well enough that only about two hundred such dimensions—Otherwheres with physical laws sufficiently
compatible with their own native dimension to allow for safe exploitation—had been discovered.
“But what if we could create entirely new Otherwheres?” Grig said
softly, eyes sparkling. “Create them to our own specifications, from the
ethereal scratch? Create them, and then when we are through with
them ...” he kissed his fingers to his lips. “Poof. Destroy them.”
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“Create dimensions?” Will blinked. “Actually ... create them?” He
cast his mind back through the schematics Grig had given him—and
in an instant all of the functions that had seemed so puzzling when
regarded out of context made perfect sense. Sure, he thought. Of
course. That’s what the machine had to do.
Seeing the light of understanding on Will’s face, Grig
smiled.”Clearly, the thrilling possibilities are not lost on you,” he said.
“So, have you thought up a name?”
“What?” Will said absently, still working through the incredible
implications in his mind. Custom building a dimension to one’s own
specifications! As long as the basic physical laws remained compatible, one could specify everything one wanted in it—including limitless
amounts of energy, without even the need to build any kind of power
plant ...
“A name!” Grig broke through his thoughts. “This machine needs
a name! I told you that yesterday.”
Will certainly didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t understood what
the machine was supposed to do until just two minutes prior. He licked
his lips and threw out the first name that came to mind:
“The Dimensionator.”
Grig was silent for a long time, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Will
heard a snuffled snort from where Roher was sitting across the room.
“I don’t know,” Grig averred. “I’m not sure if Mr. Tesla will like
it.”
Will’s heart sank to his shoes, but then inspiration struck him.
Remembering the conversation he’d had with Court, he lifted a finger
and said:
“The Tri-Dimensionator.”
Grig’s eyes widened.
“Oh, yes!” he breathed. “That’s it.”
“Now that was brilliant,” Court said, the next time they were able to
sneak off to the little hideout in the laurel hedge. “Tri-Dimensionator!
Maybe you should have gone into advertising instead.”
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“Nothing doing,” Will snorted, not even looking up from the dissertation that he’d brought out with him. Grig had asked him to write
an abstract by the end of the day, and it was hard slogging. “Thanks
for the advice.”
“No problem,” Court said. “Listen, I’ve got a way you can pay me
back. I need to use your mailbox.”
“My mailbox?”
Court rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Sounds silly, doesn’t
it? Here all the other fellows are jealous because you have your own
apartment and a warm willing wife waiting in it. But what I’m really
jealous of is your mailbox.”
Lowering the dissertation, Will looked at him quizzically. “I don’t
follow you.”
“There’s a book I need,” Court said, in a low voice. “And I can’t
have it sent here. Can I have it sent to you? I’ll tell you a secret about
Roher if you say yes. Something that will help you knock the wind out
of him.”
“I don’t know,” Will said, though the idea of getting dirt on Roher
sounded especially attractive. “I don’t want the mailman gossiping to
my landlady about delivering me a stack of Tijuana Bibles.”
“Oh for God’s sake, it’s not pornography,” Court snorted smoke out
through his nose. “Trust me, there are two things that I know how to
get ahold of inside this high-security prison—the finest of smokes and
the bluest of literature. But there’s one thing I can’t get ... and that’s
what I need your help for.”
“So, what is it?”
“Well, you know I’m a geophysicist, right? That’s what Tesla and
Grig keep me around for. But what I’m really interested in is The
Great Change of 1878. You know about the Great Change, right?”
“Not much,” Will said. “I know that no one really knows why it
happened.”
“Apparently, there is one man who does,” Court says. “And he
wrote a book explaining it. It’s called The Goês’ Confession. It’s scarce
as hen’s teeth, and it’s almost impossible to get a copy. Apparently
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there’s some mysterious ‘Agency’ that destroys the books whenever
they can find them. But whoever they are, they can’t destroy them all,
and there’s a whole underground network of people who keep printing them so the truth can be known.”
“I don’t get it,” said Will. “What truth? What Agency? What’s a
Goês?”
“Gee, don’t they teach you Greek out there in California?” Court
said. “The whole thing is a goof on the Stanton Institute. You know
what a Sophos is, right?”
Will shrugged. “Yeah, it’s a title. Like a President or something.”
Court made an exasperated sound. “In Greek, Sophos means wise
man. A Goês the opposite of a Sophos—a charlatan, a fool. But you
know the old saying ... only the truly wise man knows he is a fool.”
“All right,” said Will. “So some fool wrote a book confessing something. So what?”
“This book reveals the truth about The Great Change. What really happened.”
“So what really happened?”
“I’ll let you know after I’ve read it,” Court said. “Which I can only
do if I give my friend of a friend who’s managed to get a copy an address that isn’t ... well, you know. Monitored.”
“Come on, I’m sure they don’t open your mail here.” Will scoffed.
Court raised his eyebrows significantly but said nothing.
Will paused, brow wrinkling with concern. “You don’t think they’ll
be opening my mail, do you?” And the minute he said it, he realized
that it wasn’t his mail he was worried about.
“Of course I don’t, dummy,” Court said. “If I did, I wouldn’t be
asking to use your mailbox. So how about it? Deal?”
“Deal,” said Will, absently. But despite Court’s reassurances, he
resolved once again to remind Jenny to be careful.
And he did remind her that night as they sat up late at the kitchen
table, each working feverishly over their own project. He laid down his
mechanical pencil, leaned back in his chair, and looked at her.
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“What?” she inquired sharply, after he’d stared at her in silence for
a long time.
“Court doesn’t think they’ll watch our mail,” he said. “But you’ll
be careful, right, Jenny?”
“What are you talking about? Who’s Court?”
“Another one of the apprentices. He’s a good guy. He wants to use
our mailbox to have some stuff sent to him, because Tesla Industries
monitors the mail the apprentices get.”
Jenny snorted, shook her head. “Your Mr. Tesla sure runs a tight
ship.” Then she returned to her work without another word. She was
scrutinizing the stock pages of the Detroit Sun, making neat little notes
by issues that seemed of particular interest to her.
“They’re looking for us, you know.” Will did not need to say who.
“Of course they are.” Jenny didn’t bother to look up.
“I mean really looking for us. They’ve already contacted Tesla
Industries. Everyone’s furious. And now they’ve got all your dad’s
money on their side—”
“My dad can go soak his head!” Jenny snapped. She kept her eyes
on her papers, but he saw her expression soften and grow slightly wistful. “Darn it.” She was silent for a long time. “I only need a couple of
weeks, William. Once your patent is filed, I’ll go away and they won’t
make trouble for you any more.”
“That’s not what I mean!”
Jenny sighed. “Yes it is. Or at least it should be. I may be helping
you with your patent, but I know I’m hurting you just as much. If I
weren’t here, your parents wouldn’t be half as mad as they are.”
Will rubbed his tired eyes. “What have we done that’s so wrong?”
He found himself thinking back on the conversation he’d had with
Nate in the barn. Nate had said Will should try to take his father on
faith. “Why can’t they have faith in us?”
“It’s not that our parents are bad, or mean, or unkind,” said Jenny,
softly. “They just don’t understand. They can’t understand. Things
were different for them. They lived in a different world, and they’re
trying to hold us to those standards. We have to teach them. It’s our
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job to show them, even though it’s hard, even though it may make
them ... hate us.” She paused, biting her lip at the thought.
“Your dad won’t ever hate you,” said Will.
Jenny seemed oddly unconvinced. “I’ll wire him tomorrow. I’ll tell
him I’m coming home.”
“Jenny!”
“I’m not really going to go!” she answered the alarm in his voice.
“It’s just to stall for time. I’ll tell him I’m coming home, but only if he
makes your parents promise to stop bothering Tesla Industries about
you. It takes days to get to California by train, and that’ll keep everyone out of our hair for at least that long.”
“And when you don’t show up at the station?”
“All we need is a head start,” she said. “I’ll work harder between
now and then to make sure I have everything I need from you to write
up the description. If I have to go before you’re done with the schematics, I’ll find a way for you to send them to me.” She reached across
the table and placed her warm little hand on his wrist, pressing it encouragingly. “Like I’ve said, William, I have plans, and you’re a part
of them. But it just wouldn’t be fair if my plans spoiled yours. They
won’t. I promise.”
Will contemplated this. It satisfied the strict business requirements
of their deal, but he did not find it very satisfying otherwise. In fact,
the thought of Jenny leaving—going off into the cruel world by herself, with no one to watch out for her—was downright disheartening.
He laid his larger hand over hers.
“Can you at least tell me what Claire meant when she said that you
were doing something dangerous?”
Jenny drew a deep breath. Withdrawing her hand from beneath
his, she lifted her head to fix him with a steady gaze. Will was struck
by how her eyes—the color of the summer sky when she was cheerful—could become the color of tempered steel when she was annoyed.
“Why don’t you think of it this way?” she offered. “The word
Claire should have used was risky. And yes, what I’m doing is risky.”
She laid a hand on the stock pages. “But everything in life is risky. That
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doesn’t mean it’s dangerous. What I’m doing is not going to cause
either of us any harm. All right?”
Will sighed. Nothing she’d said made him feel better. Picking up
his mechanical pencil, he leaned back down over his work.
“All right,” he said, as he began drawing again. “Just promise me
one thing. Promise you’ll ask me for help if you need it. Remember
what you said? Geniuses need people to protect them.”
This made her smile softly, and blush, but she said nothing more.
Chapter Ten
Working with a Will
Twelve days until the full moon
Dear Will:
I am in receipt of your telegram confirming that you’ve sent Jenny
home. Good for you. You’ve made a wise choice. I’ve had a very interesting letter from Mother describing the hullabaloo you’ve caused
back home. She says Jenny made it a condition of her return that
everyone had to stop bothering Tesla Industries about you. Loyal
little wife you’ve got there! Sometime you’ll have to tell me what the
hell you two were thinking. Didn’t I tell you to watch out for girls?
Mr. Hansen got Mother to agree, but apparently Father was a lot
more pig-headed about it. So now she’s almost as mad at Father
as she is at you. She knows it was his pig-headedness that drove
you to take such desperate measures—and while it was her duty to
support him, she can’t figure out why he was so riled up about you
going to Tesla Industries in the first place, or why he cares so much
now about getting you back.
Well, anyway. Leave them to hash it out amongst themselves.
You’re at Tesla Industries, and the parents won’t be bothering you
any more, and I hope things can really get started for you in earnest.
I am still hoping to come visit you, as I promised. It is very difficult to
get away at the moment because we at the Institute are all working
very hard on the promotion efforts for the new Dreadnought Stanton
moving picture that Edison Studios is putting out.
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It occurs to me that you’ve probably wondered just what it is I do at
the Stanton Institute. Especially since it is a magical institution, and
I’ve described at length how my ability to practice magic was taken
from me at a young age.
My work isn’t especially glamorous (if you’ll excuse the pun.) I’m
what is called a Jefferson Chair, but that really reflects more of how
my position is funded as opposed to what I actually do. My official
title is Senior Mantic Research Associate. I compile detailed reports on magical artifacts of particular power or interest for Sophos
Stanton. He uses my research—and the research of many others
like me—to decide what artifacts he needs to take into the Institute’s
safekeeping. Of course, his retrieval of said artifacts is usually not
quite as dramatic as is portrayed in the pulp novels. Most of the
time, in fact, we just buy them. But it’s a good days work, especially
when we can take something particularly dangerous or malign out of
the hands of those who might seek to use it for nefarious purposes.
Anyway, I will send you details about my arrival when I can. I am
looking forward to seeing you in person. It’s been such a long time,
and we have so much to discuss.
Ben
A
ll the other apprentices at Tesla Industries got Sundays off. For
them it meant a day of rest on which they could enjoy a special
vegetarian meal in the cafeteria, a few extra hours of meditation in
the Buddhist temple, or participation in a Tesla-approved gathering of
unquestionable moral value. While the other apprentices—especially
Court—grumbled about the dullness of their Sundays, Will would
gladly have traded places with any of them, because it would have
meant he didn’t have to deal with Jenny coming into his room at the
crack of dawn to shake him awake.
“Good morning!” she chirped in his ear. “Let’s make the best use
of this day, shall we?”
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Growling, Will rolled over and turned his back to her. “Let’s just
leave me the hell alone, shall we?” he mumbled sleepily. “We’re not
doing anything but sleeping.”
Jenny gave him a firm shake. “This Sunday and next Sunday are
the only two full days we’ve got to work before the patent has to go in,”
she reminded him. “Come on, get up.”
Will found that he couldn’t care less. He was exhausted. In the past
week, under Jenny’s merciless whip-hand, he’d averaged little more
than three hours of sleep a night. He had just drifted back into a
peaceful slumber when a torrent of cold water came splashing down
on his head. He leapt out of bed, spluttering. “Jesus!”
Jenny had retreated to the other side of the room, water-glass in
hand. She was trying to look firm and resolute but he could tell she
was also trying not to giggle. He glared at her.
“It’s like living with Genghis Khan!” he yelled at her. “Can’t I take
one stinking day off ? Just a couple of stinking hours, even? Please?”
“No,” she said. “You can’t. This has to get finished, and it has to
get finished before the end of this year. Remember? Plans?”
“Right,” Will sighed. “Plans.” He wiped water from his face. “Fine.
I guess a couple weeks without sleep never killed anyone. Just made
them wish they were dead.”
Jenny’s smile returned, brighter than ever. She handed him a towel.
“C’mon, there’s fresh coffee,” she said. “And I’ve got an idea that
will make the time just fly.”
After shaving and dressing and downing two strong cups of coffee in succession, Will felt almost ready to face the morning, even
though the sun hadn’t yet risen and the apartment was still pitch-dark.
Arranging his implements before himself—t-squares and protractors
and mechanical pencils—he winced as Jenny switched on the light
that hung over the kitchen table.
As he was rolling up the sleeves of his old blue workshirt, he heard
her gasp. He steeled himself to defend his sartorial rights—Sunday
might be just another workday, but damned if he was going to dress
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up like it was!—but then he saw that she was looking not at his shirt,
but at the burn on his arm.
“William! What on earth did you do to yourself ?”
Will looked down at the place where he’d pressed his skin against
the steam radiator to break Ma’am’s Send. It did look pretty alarming,
luridly red and puckered. It was funny how burns actually looked worse
after they’d had some time to heal up. He pulled the fabric back down
over the ugly scabs, shrugged.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Just an accident—down at the lab.”
Time to change the subject. “So, what’s your great idea to make the
time fly?”
“I’m going to read to you, just like old times!”
“Great,” said Will, unenthusiastically. The only book they had in
the apartment was the fat leatherbound volume of patent law she’d
picked up from the library. Or maybe she was going to read him the
stock reports. “Better put on another pot of coffee.”
“Oh, don’t worry, this will keep you awake.” To his shock, she
held up a book with a brilliantly colored cover ... showing a boy’s face,
bisected into halves of good and evil. The copy of The Warlock’s Curse
that he’d brought with him from California—the book he had used to
unlock Ben’s first letter.
He struggled to hide his discomfort. “Where did you find that?”
“I found it when I was tidying your room. I do tidy, you know.” She
looked over the book. “And anyway, it’s my book, isn’t it? It’s one of
the ones I left up in your hayloft.” She turned to the inside front cover
where eight-year-old Jenny had scrawled her name in large, blocky letters. “Why’d you bring it with you, anyway? You didn’t bring anything
else.”
Will shrugged. “I brought my tools, didn’t I?” It was a trick he’d
learned from Father ... when you didn’t want to answer a question, the
best tactic was to answer without giving an answer.
Jenny hmphed. “Well anyway, I’m glad you brought it. It’s just
about the most hilarious one there is. And I promise I’ll do all the
voices like I used to.”
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The True Life Tales of Dreadnought Stanton books were not supposed to
be hilarious—they were supposed to be dramatic, moving, thrilling—
but the effort they expended to be the latter was exactly what made
them the former. When they were children, Jenny used to read the
books without irony, delivering each dire pronouncement or witty quip
with breathless appreciation. In the years that had passed, however,
she’d developed an exquisite knack for pricking the inflated bombast
and poking fun at its deflated remains.
“Chapter One: Down on the Farm!” she announced, after she’d
Voice-Of-God-ded her way through the Prologue, which was as tedious and irrelevant as Prologues in a Dreadnought Stanton book
usually were, written in a distant third person and reminding the
reader that the True Life Tales of Dreadnought Stanton were, indeed, based
on tales drawn from true life as it was lived in those United States,
and that readers wishing to assert their status as patriotic Americans
should read each and every one of them diligently and repeatedly,
and also buy them as gifts. “Oh boy, here we go. I can’t remember,
is the villain in this one a stone-stupid Animancer or a bloodthirsty
Sangrimancer? Sangrimancer, probably. They’re the ones who come
up with the best curses.” She paused. “You know, just for once I’d
like to see Dreadnought Stanton go up against another Credomancer.
Now that would be a book I’d buy as a gift.”
Will smiled. “C’mon, Scuff. You know Credomancers are always
the good guys,” he commented, rubbing out a stray mark with a gum
eraser.
Indeed, it was a formula so pat and unswerving as to be unworthy
of comment. Credomancers—warlocks who wielded the power of
faith—were represented by the series’ titular hero as unfailingly decent, noble, patriotic, and wise. The other kinds of magical practitioners were cast, by contrast, in a predictably repetitive shade of unflattering light. Animancers—witches or warlocks who drew power from
the vital spirits of nature—always had a mental capacity on par with
a brick. A very small brick. When they were the villains, it was usually
because they couldn’t even begin to comprehend the terrible forces
194
they were attempting to control. And it was, of course, Dreadnought
Stanton’s duty to enlighten them.
Sangrimancers—blood sorcerers—made much better villains.
They weren’t stupid, rather, they were utterly depraved, usually in
some wonderfully lurid fashion. But no matter who the villain was, the
Great Credomancer, Dreadnought Stanton, Sophos of the Stanton
Institute, always won the day with good manners, clean morals, and
American ethics.
“It was blooming spring, and young farm-boy Dick Smith stood at the edge
of a freshly-plowed field, dreaming of the bountiful harvest that would reward his
diligent efforts.” Jenny read, then stopped, unable to even get through
the first sentence of the first chapter without rolling her eyes. “For
God’s sake, why are the heroes in these things always named ‘Dick’? I
swear, I’ve read a hundred of these things and it’s nothing but Dicks as
far as the eye can see—”
“Just get on with it,” Will interrupted, reddening. Jesus, this was
going to be a long book. “And keep your thoughts to yourself on the
plowing part, if you please.”
Lips twitching mischievously, Jenny continued, in a very serious
tone:
“But little did he know the terrible fate that was about to descend upon him,
the result of a dire family curse laid upon his ancestors,” she read. “Young Dick’s
shining eyes were filled only with dreams of prosperity, of his crops that would
laden the tables of American citizens from sea to shining sea, providing bountiful
sustenance to support the great efforts of a nation on the march.” She peered at
the sentence more closely. “Is ‘laden’ really a verb?”
“Sure, if Dreadnought Stanton says it is,” Will lifted an eyebrow.
“I can’t believe you’re even questioning it.”
In this fashion they proceeded to fill their Sunday with the tale of
a standard-issue farmboy, who grew up in a standard-issue town in
some standard-issue State, who was called upon to weather unimagined tragedy so that ultimately he might be delivered from it and learn
a valuable lesson. The action proceeded swiftly. By the third chapter,
it was revealed that young Dick had inherited a terrible family curse.
Working with a Will
195
One of the farmboy’s fool ancestors had apparently annoyed a depraved warlock (a Sangrimancer, just as Jenny had predicted) causing
said depraved warlock to lay a curse on their lineage for as long as the
gravid Earth should twirl ‘neath the sun’s beneficent splendor.
“Now that’s a nice piece of writing right there,” Jenny had commented dryly, tapping the line with her index finger. “Makes it sound
like the Earth’s about to have puppies.”
The story really picked up on the first full moon after the poor
sap’s eighteenth birthday, when the curse kicked in. Suddenly, and
without warning, poor Dick Smith found himself bodily possessed by
the revenant spirit of this vengeful old malefactor. And that’s when
Jenny’s dramatic talents started to shine, as she read the lines of the
evil warlock with malicious relish:
“Do you not see, you sad mortal worm, that your body belongs to me, and you
are powerless to stop me from using it to wreak whatever dark magical havoc my
unquiet mind can conceive?” Jenny read the warlock’s words in a low, sneering voice, and if she’d had a moustache, she would have twirled it. The
warlock proceeded to make the poor farmboy do all sorts of horrible
things, culminating in a particularly thrilling scene where he set fire
to a barn and his spunky girlfriend—who was named Tessie—had to
risk her life rescuing all the little baby lambs from the ravenous flames.
“Whew!” Jenny said, sitting back in her chair and fanning herself once Tessie and all the little baby lambs had escaped from the
threat of being barbecued. But she did not rest long. “I wonder when
Dreadnought Stanton is going to finally show up! We’re almost to the
end!”
“He’s a busy man,” said Will, sketching a careful line. “Give him
time.”
And indeed, Dreadnought Stanton arrived only in the nick of
time, having arrived in the farmboy’s standard-issue State for a bit of
rest and fresh country air. Poor Dreadnought Stanton, Will smirked. Goes
out for some quiet relaxation in America’s heartland—maybe do a
little fishing—and all he gets are cursed farmboys setting barnfires and
attempting to murder baby lambs.
196
At least it didn’t take long for the Sophos of the Stanton Institute
to put things to right. As anticipated, Dreadnought Stanton quickly
dispatched the evil spirit with a magical light-show and a swirl of commanding Latin.
Concluding this passage, Jenny wrinkled her nose.
“I’d forgotten how weak the ending of this one was,” she frowned.
“Jeez, you’d think it would take more than three paragraphs to send
that filthy fiend packing. Usually they put up more of a fight.”
“They’ll probably make it better in the Edison movie,” Will suggested. “I hear the special effects are going to be top-notch.”
“Maybe,” Jenny said, but she sounded unconvinced. She quickly
ran through the last few pages, which described how the farmboy and
Tessie had thanked Dreadnought Stanton (who was probably more
interested in getting on with his damn fishing, Will imagined), declared
their undying love for each other, and then hugged some baby lambs.
“And they lived happily ever after,” Jenny concluded, as she closed
the book. Her voice was husky from extended reading. Will glanced
at his watch, then looked at it again in disbelief—it was almost seven!
They’d been at it for twelve hours straight.
“I can tell you one thing, all that talk of baby lambs has made
me hungry,” Jenny said. Will’s stomach was growling too—they’d sustained themselves on nothing but melodrama and coffee all day. Jenny
slapped the book down on the kitchen table and jumped to her feet.
“That’s enough for today, William. Let’s go get some food!”
“I’m not supposed to leave the apartment building without Grig,”
Will said. “I promised.”
Jenny made a face. “What do you mean, you promised?”
Will pressed his lips together. He didn’t want to tell Jenny about
the contract he’d signed in blood. Not yet, anyway. He was pretty darn
sure he wouldn’t want to tell her tomorrow. Or ever, in fact.
“They would just prefer that I not,” he evaded. “You know Mrs.
Kosanovic is always watching us. Mr. Tesla likes to have control over
his apprentices.”
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“He doesn’t own you,” Jenny said. “Honestly, William, you have
to start thinking more like a genius and less like an indentured servant. Tesla doesn’t bring together bright young minds like yours for
his health. He does it because he stands to profit by it. He is not your
friend. He’s not your protector. He wants work and thought out of
you, and he wants to profit from it. There’s a big difference between
accommodating him to achieve your ends and putting your neck under his foot.”
Will was suddenly reminded of the young labor organizer. He had
seen the dark-haired street-corner activist several times since his first
day at Tesla Industries, and whenever he managed to gather a small
crowd (which wasn’t often) his speeches usually went along in a similar
vein. It seemed dangerous to Will to get into the habit of thinking in
such a way—even if it was just Jenny encouraging him to do so.
“If I’m going to break another rule,” said Will loftily, “it’s going to
be for a better reason than sneaking out to get food.”
“But this isn’t just food,” Jenny assumed a seductive, cajoling tone.
“It’s chop suey. When I was out walking yesterday, I came across a place
that’s open all night. Their egg rolls are as good as anything I ever ate
in San Francisco, and you know that’s saying something.”
After a whole week of vegetarian meals in which unsalted mashed
potatoes had featured prominently, the very thought of savory meat
and rich oily fried noodles made Will’s stomach rumble.
“Come on,” Jenny said, going to the hall closet and taking out her
new fur coat. “We’ll sneak out the back. No one will know we’re gone.”
Tiptoeing down the rear stairs, they crept along the side alley and
out to Winslow Street. The night was bitingly cold, and a few flakes of
snow drifted down through the glow of the moonlight towers. Jenny,
holding the warm fur close around herself, led the way with brisk little
steps, heels clicking on the frozen pavement.
The restaurant wasn’t far, just a bit of the way up Piquette. It
seemed to cater specifically to the many late-shift factory workers in
the area, and when they arrived it was crammed with an off-hour
198
dinner rush. It was brightly lit and decorated with colorful folding
screens and gilt carved brackets; large decorative knots of silk hung
on the walls.
Will and Jenny were given a table in the back near the kitchen, and
before long Will was ravenously devouring crispy egg rolls, greasy pork
and vegetables over fried noodles, and thick, salty hot-and-sour soup.
With each bite, Will felt strength returning that he hadn’t even known
he lacked.
“I just don’t understand how Mr. Tesla thinks that men can work
without meat,” Jenny mused, reaching for another egg roll. “My dad
used to say that two pounds of good beef and two pints of good beer
would get better work out of any man than the fanciest French meal
at Delmonico’s.”
The mention of Mr. Hansen—who believed Jenny was even now
on the way home to California, and who was due for another sad
disappointment—made Will sigh.
“You know, I really like your dad,” he ventured. “I wish things
didn’t have to be the way they are.”
Jenny played with her napkin. “You let me worry about my dad.”
“You seem to like to have a corner on the worrying market,” Will
retorted. “Honestly, I’m getting kind of tired of it.”
“Really?” she said, lifting an eyebrow. “In my experience, most
people like to not have to worry about things.”
“They like to not worry about things that don’t matter,” Will said.
“But this matters, Jenny.”
“There are a lot of things in life that matter,” Jenny snapped. “But
they don’t all matter equally. Sometimes you have to put one before
another.”
“You, for example, put your sister before your father.” In response
to the flash of annoyance, that passed over Jenny’s face, he said: “You
made me promise that I wouldn’t ask, not that I wouldn’t deduce.” He
paused, sipping his tea. “Whatever your plans are, they’re clearly for
Claire’s benefit—and your father doesn’t approve. You’ve put Claire
before your father. QED.”
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199
“Well, just who else is going to?” she said, through clenched teeth.
“My father has everything he needs to look out for himself. Claire
doesn’t.”
“She’s got an inheritance, just like you do—”
“Do you think for one moment that anyone will ever let her use it
the way she wants?” Jenny cut him off sharply. “My sister is as intelligent
and conscious as you or I, William. But because of her ... infirmity ... she
is not allowed to make decisions for herself, and never will be. They’ll
keep her in a prison and treat her like a moron, they’ll cut her apart and
take away even the dream of a normal life ... unless I help her.”
“Help her how?” Will said quickly. But Jenny was not to be that
easily caught. She just leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms, and
glared.
Will suddenly found himself thinking about the book they’d spent
all day reading. He grinned wanly, taking the last eggroll from the
grease-streaked plate.
“You know something?” he said, biting into it. “You’re Dreadnought
Stanton.”
“What?” she said, still frowning.
“You’re Dreadnought Stanton,” he said again. “You intend to
come in the nick of time and set everything right, against all odds.
Through the force of sheer will.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and did not smile. “I promise you,
it’s going to take more than sheer will.”
At that moment, the waitress came along with the bill, two crisp
little half-moon cookies resting atop the Chinese-scrawled slip of
green paper. When Jenny saw them, her stormy mood dissipated almost instantly.
“Fortune cookies!” she said, seizing one. “I thought they only
had these in San Francisco.” To Will’s surprise, instead of eating the
cookie, she crumbled it in her hand and extracted a little slip of paper.
“They have your fortune printed on them,” she said, showing him
the slip then turning it over to read it. Her brow wrinkled and her
smiled dimmed.
200
Will took the other cookie and broke it open, extracting his own
small slip of paper.
“The past is in your future,” he read. “What the heck does that mean,
anyway? What does yours say?”
“Mine doesn’t make any sense either,” she muttered, tucking the
little slip away into her purse. “These aren’t as good as the ones in San
Francisco. The last one I got there said Who dares, wins. I’m going to
stick with that one.”
As they were making their way through the crowded restaurant
toward the front door, Will caught sight of a familiar figure through
the front window. It was the street-corner activist who usually hung
around outside Tesla Industries. It had begun to snow hard, and his
threadbare outfit was dusted with white. He was talking with a man
in a shiny, cheap-looking suit. The man was showing him something,
some kind of flyer, and the dark-haired young man was shaking his
head—and as he did so, he happened to catch sight of Will and Jenny.
His eyes met Will’s for a just a moment. Then he quickly put his hand
on the shoulder of his companion and turned him away from the
restaurant window. He pointed down Piquette, and whatever he said
made the man tip his hat eagerly and head quickly in that direction.
As soon as the man was gone, the organizer came inside the restaurant, hurriedly making his way toward them. He did not look at
Jenny, clearly not expecting any kind of introduction, but rather spoke
low hurried words into Will’s ear:
“You seen that feller out front? He’s showin’ around flyers of you
and your girl. You might consider going out the back way.” Then,
he turned on his heel and left the way he had come. To the restaurant proprietor who had greeted his entrance with a dark frown, he
touched the brim of his hat and said saucily, “Don’t worry, brother, I
ain’t gonna steal nothing.”
Will quickly spun Jenny toward the back of the restaurant.
“What on earth—” she began, but then fell silent as she saw the look
on Will’s face. He led her through the kitchen—to the bemusement of
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201
the busy Chinese cooks—and out the back door. When they emerged
in the back alley, she looked at him curiously.
“They’re still looking for us!” said Will through clenched teeth,
pulling his cap down tight on his head. “There was someone outside
the restaurant showing around flyers!”
“But why?” The snow was falling even more heavily now, powdering Jenny’s fur coat with little puffs of white. “Dad thinks I’m on my
way home! I told him I’d only come if your parents would leave you
alone—and he said they agreed!”
Will nodded. Ben had even written that Ma’am had agreed to
Jenny’s terms. But he said Father ... Father had been pig-headed.
“They’ve double-crossed us,” said Will, grimly. “They think they
can get you home and get me back.”
“Why would they do that?” Jenny said. “Why wouldn’t they keep
their word?”
“I don’t know.” Will set his jaw and glanced at his wristwatch. It
was not yet nine o’clock. There was still plenty of time. “But I know
someone who might.”
Chapter Eleven
Harley Briar
Eleven days until the full moon
Dear Will:
I am in receipt of your urgent telegram dated 9:30 p.m., Sunday,
December 4. And I’m sorry to say that I can’t shed much light on
why there are people still looking for you, even after Jenny made
that deal with her dad. It does indeed seem like a double-cross, as
you wrote in your wire.
I am absolutely certain that Mother believes that all efforts to bring
you home have ceased. She gave Mr. Hansen her word that she
would comply with Jenny’s demands, and she wouldn’t break her
word for anything. So if there are detectives still looking for you, I
would lay money that they’re not working for our parents ... they’re
working for our parent, singular. Father.
Father has said he wants you back from Detroit, no matter what it
takes. And you know how Father is when he gets a bone in his teeth.
I will see if I can find out anything more. Meanwhile, don’t worry. It’ll
all come out all right. You’ll see.
Ben
A
fter all the hard work they’d put in on Sunday, Will expected that
Monday would be a particularly execrable specimen of its type. And
indeed it was, as Grig was called into a private meeting with Mr. Tesla
Harley Briar
203
almost as soon as they’d arrived at Building Three, and didn’t return all
that day.
Roher always took Grig’s absences as an opportunity to subject
Will to torment and abuse. Will had sat on tacks no fewer than three
times, found little doodles on his papers of stick figures being stabbed
with stick daggers, and once he even discovered a “kick me” sign
pinned to his back.
Probably the worst thing, though, was Roher’s chair. It squeaked.
A high-pitched, grating squeak. And Roher, aware of this fact, made
it his business to constantly rock back and forth with tiny little movements. Squeak, squeak, squeak—it was like Chinese water torture.
Having suffered through a morning of particularly intense mistreatment, and particularly prolonged squeaking, Will finally cornered
Court after lunch. “So what’s the dirt you promised me on Roher?”
Court grinned as he pulled out one of his cigarettes. “You’re not
letting the kraut get to you, are you?”
“If he calls me ‘blockhead’ one more time I’m going to set fire
to his desk,” Will vowed fiercely. “Which I don’t suppose you’d care
about, except the whole building might go up in flames, including your
pictures of Marie Curie, and I don’t think you want that.”
Court’s lazy smile disappeared. “Don’t you dare threaten Marie!”
He gestured Will to lean in close.
“Roher’s got a girl,” he whispered. “Passes notes to her through the
fence almost every day. She’s a cute little blonde number with braids.
Wears them all pinned up on top of her head. I’ve seen the two of
them canoodling through the iron bars, fingers entwined and all that.
It’s like Romeo and Juliet.”
“I thought you said he wasn’t interested in sex, just physics.”
“I never said he wasn’t interested in sex,” Court said, as if he found
the very idea ridiculous. “Just that he was more interested in physics.”
“Fine. So what do I care if he has a girl?”
“You may not care, but Mr. Tesla sure would,” Court offered slyly.
“You might just want to let Roher know that you know what everyone
else around here knows—Grig included. Then maybe he’ll lay off you.”
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Will pondered this, but said nothing more. And even when he went
back to his desk that afternoon and found that each and every one of
his steel pen nibs had been bent and blunted, he did not immediately
act upon the information he had received. Instead, he just smiled to
himself. Roher could just keep on playing his little games. For now.
Because Will had learned something else from his father besides the
value of a clean handkerchief—for a strike to be most devastating, it
had to be delivered when the moment was right.
Afternoon stretched into evening. Grig remained closeted with Mr.
Tesla, finally sending a message to Building Three that their conference would not be completed until well after midnight, and that the
apprentices should retire. Which they did, in all haste, Roher singing
a mocking “goodnight, blockhead!” as he’d strolled out. Will was left
alone in the darkened Building Three to brood. Wasn’t this a fine state
of affairs, he thought irritably. Stuck waiting to be walked the whole
three blocks home. He thought idly about getting started on rebuilding
his Flume, just so he could have something to do.
No, it was too ridiculous. There was no way he was just going to
sit here. Grig’s message had said the apprentices should retire. That
could be taken to mean him, as well. Sure, it was a stretch to impute
such a special dispensation to the brief text of the message—but it was
a plausible excuse, and he could embroider it if need be. Snatching his
coat, he left Building Three and headed for the front gate.
He emerged onto the street in front of the huge main gates feeling both triumphant and apprehensive. He looked up and down the
street for private investigators in shiny suits. Having deemed the coast
clear, he was just beginning to turn toward home when he caught
sight of the young labor organizer standing on the corner. Will knew
he wouldn’t get another chance to thank him for the good turn he’d
done at the chop-suey house—he certainly could never do it in front
of Grig—so he quickly crossed the dark street to where the young man
stood hunched and shivering, hands jammed deep in his pockets.
It was just 20 degrees out, but the young man had only a canvas
overcoat, worn over several sweaters and a ragged muffler. As Will
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approached him, he was trying to light a hand-rolled cigarette with
bare, trembling hands. Will remembered a packet of matches he’d
picked up when he and Jenny were in Stockton. He’d grown accustomed to putting them in his pocket every day, along with whatever
spare change he had, and his apartment key. Stopping in front of the
man, Will fished in his pocket and handed the matches to him.
“Thanks, brother,” the young man said, looking up. His eyes
became slightly wary when he saw who’d handed them to him. But
whatever inspired the wariness, he kept it to himself as he struck a
match into bright flame. The sudden harsh illumination revealed dark
circles under his eyes. Will was reminded of the Dorians he’d seen at
the dance hall in Stockton, but he didn’t guess labor organizers went
in for such pretentious affectation.
The young man waved out the match and regarded the packet
with interest.
“Hotel Stockton,” he observed. “The private dick said you were
from California. I hear tell it’s mighty nice. Oranges and sunshine,
right?”
“Plenty of sunshine, I guess,” Will said. “But my family didn’t have
oranges. We had horses.”
“Must have had money too,” The young man said, narrowing his
eyes as he inhaled smoke. “Poor folk don’t send private investigators
looking for their sons.”
When Will did not say anything, the man held out the matchbook with
a shrug.
“No, keep them,” said Will. He paused, then added: “Thanks for what
you did the other night.”
No comment. Just another indifferent shrug as the man took a pull on
the harsh tobacco.
“Hey, you want a cup of coffee?” Will asked. The young man peered at
Will curiously, as if wondering if he’d heard him right.
“You sure you ought?” he grinned crookedly. “You sure your Russian
nanny won’t mind?”
206
“That’s not a very friendly thing to say to someone offering you coffee,”
Will said. “Especially when he’s willing to buy you a sandwich to go with it.”
The young man grinned again as he stuck out his ungloved hand.
Even through his own glove, Will could feel how cold the young man’s
skin was.
“We ain’t never been properly introduced. Name’s Briar,” he said,
drawing it out so it sounded like bra-ar. “Harley Briar. Labor organizer
for the International Workers of the World. But I guess you already
knew that, right?”
“I knew one, but not the other,” Will said. Then he added, sheepishly, “You’ll have to tell me a good place to go. Someplace ... you
know, safe. I only know the chop-suey house and I don’t think I should
go back there.”
Briar shook his head. “Boy, you’re on a short leash, ain’t you?
Private dicks holdin’ one end and Tesla Industries the other. Hope
you didn’t sign any kind of contract with Tesla, by the way. Normally
I don’t concern myself with the problems of college boys, but his contracts are awful damn bad.”
Will shuddered. He didn’t want to think about the contract he’d
signed, because the more he thought about it, the more he regretted
it. He regretted not reading it in the first place, he regretted not having
Jenny look over the changes ...
It’ll all come out all right. You’ll see. He remembered the words in Ben’s
letter. They were surprisingly comforting.
What was done was done. And after all, he was working at Tesla
Industries. It would all come out all right ... somehow.
“C’mon,” Briar said. “I know a fine safe place, and it’s close
t’hand.”
Will followed Briar to a small, dingy café on Grand River Avenue
tucked in among a clot of darkened mechanics shops. The inside of
the café was very, very warm—they probably kept it this way, Will realized, because most of the men inside seemed to be as insubstantially
clothed as Briar, with wads of newspaper sticking out of the collars of
their thin shirts and shoes held together with twine. No one gave Briar
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a second look, but Will drew many appraising glances. Remembering
the Tesla Industries pin he wore, Will turned his lapel under to hide it.
Will ordered two cups of coffee and two big club sandwiches,
and as they waited for their food, he took Briar’s measure. The young
man was small and scrawny, but his hands—strangely stained and
scarred—were large and looked very strong. When Briar noticed Will
looking, he held them up for examination.
“I come from Kentucky,” he said, turning them over. “My dad
and brothers all coal miners. Beats the hands to hell. I got out of there
when I was fifteen. Been kicking around all sorts of places since then.”
The coffee came first, and Briar poured lots of sugar and most of the
cream into his.
“So I’ve been wondering,” Will said, stirring what cream was left
into his cup, “I see you standing outside Tesla Industries every day,
but I don’t get just who you’re trying to organize. The workers at the
Teslaphone factory are escorted out on autobuses, and the other apprentices aren’t even allowed to leave at all.”
“I started hanging around that corner outside Fort Tesla just out
of sheer cussedness,” Briar smirked, warming his hands on the white
china. “Just ‘cause Niko finds us organized labor types so messy and
upsetting. He thinks of us like a spot the dog left on the rug. But I’m
only there mornings and night. During the day, while you’re inside,
I make my way around the magical factories.” Briar paused, took a
large swallow of his coffee. “Now, everybody knows about Detroit’s
car factories, ‘course, they’re famous. And our boys have plenty to do
with them. But I got a different angle. I work the magical factories. The
three big ones between Woodward and Grand River ... CharmCo,
you heard of them, right?”
Will nodded. “They make the charms that the old businessmen
use. The ones that have all the young businessmen yelling about a
Mantic Trust.”
“They make all sorts of things,” Briar said. “Strong charms for
old men, weaker charms for young men, woman charms to tell pregnancy or stop it ... anything and everything. They run a non-stop line
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and they’re rotten to their workers. All the magical factories are. See,
except for a few old hands, all their workers are under thirty. And even
if they’re not working lots of magic, they’re still working it steady, and
that exposure builds up, worse than the Black Lung I saw back home.”
Now the sandwiches came, and no sooner had the waitress set the
plate on the table than Briar attacked the food. When he spoke again,
it was through a full mouth. “’Course, by the time they actually get
sick, the factories don’t want nothing to do with them no more.”
The waitress was trying to hurry away, but Briar plucked the hem
of her apron, and said, in a very courtly fashion: “I’d be much obliged
if you’d bring me a cup of hot water, sister.”
The waitress rolled her eyes and jerked her apron away.
“Bum,” she muttered, but, eyeing Will’s nice overcoat, she left
and eventually returned with the hot water Briar had requested. Will
watched as Briar opened the bottle of ketchup that was on the table
and poured half of it into the cup. He winked conspiratorially.
“Good as tomato soup, free as the wind.”
“Heck, I’ll buy you soup—” Will began, but Briar cut off the words
with an emphatic shake of his head.
“Nothin’ doin’,” he said. “I did you a favor and you paid me back.
We’re square. Grig Grigoriyev and all you brainy bastards inside Fort
Tesla can say what you like about me, but I ain’t any kind of a bum.”
There was an uncomfortable silence, broken only by the sound of
silver against china as Briar stirred his ketchup soup.
“You come a long way to work at Tesla Industries,” Briar said
finally, tapping the spoon against the cup’s rim. “You’re awful young. I
guess they picked you right off the horse farm, huh?”
Will was eager to get to the main point. “Look, can you tell me
what the man—the private detective—what did he say to you?”
“Well, he said that he knew you and your girl were somewhere
around Tesla Industries. He wanted to know if I’d seen you, if I knew
where you two were holed up. Your father is offering a good reward.”
Briar signaled the waitress to refill his coffee cup. She frowned disdainfully and did not hurry to do so.
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“My father?” said Will. “He said that? Exactly that?”
Briar nodded. “Exactly that. He said that he’d been hired by your
father in California. That surprise you?”
“No. It doesn’t surprise me at all,” Will muttered. It confirmed
Ben’s suspicions. Mr. Hansen and Ma’am had agreed to Jenny’s
terms—but Father hadn’t. With Father, it was a grudge. Father was
going to have his pound of flesh, come hell or high water.
“Bastard,” Will whispered.
“So, why’s he after you?” Briar asked. “You two elope, maybe?
You couldn’t stand to leave her behind in California?” He paused,
then added thoughtfully, “That’s about the only reason I can figure
Tesla would let you live off Compound.” Then he snorted with laughter. “Hell of a good dodge ... I bet half the college boys you work with
wish they’d thought of it!”
“Wish they’d thought of it,” Will affirmed, “And hate me because
I did. Except I didn’t. I just kind of ... lucked into it.”
“That’s the kind of luck to have,” Briar said. “Dumb luck.”
There was a sudden disturbance at the front of the café, as the
door was jerked open with a loud tinkling of bells. A young boy—no
more than twelve—poked his head inside and looked around wildly.
When his gaze fell on Briar, he seemed to melt with relief.
“Harley!” he cried, rushing inside and over to their table.
Undernourished and undersized, he wore ragged clothes and his face
was streaked with oily grime. “Gee, Harley, am I glad to find you. You
gotta come!”
Briar leaned back in his seat. “Gotta come where? What gives?”
“There’s trouble over at Mayflower! Floor boss made Rico Selvaggi
work a double. He’s gone off the deep end!”
Briar paled, and was already half out of the booth before the boy
had finished speaking, putting on his coat and hat. “There anyone else
over there can help?”
The boy shook his head, his face anguished.
“Nobody,” he said, then added bitterly. “Nobody who ain’t afraid
of getting canned, that is. But I’ll come, Harley!”
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“Hell, no. Wrassle down Rico Selvaggi?” Briar slapped the
scrawny kid on the shoulder. “You keep running. Get down to the
Temple of Labor, see if anyone there can come. I’ll do what I can in
the meanwhile.”
“You ain’t goin’ to take on Selvaggi by yourself, are you?” The kid’s
eyes were huge with the thought of it. Even Briar looked daunted. He
looked at Will, body tense with haste. “You,” he snapped. “You really
want to pay me back? Hell, pay me forward? I need you to come with
me. Selvaggi is a big mean sonofabitch, and I can’t handle him alone.”
Will knew he shouldn’t be out on the street—Ben had warned him
against it. But he doubted the private investigators would be searching
factories for him. And all that was waiting for him at home were his
unfinished schematics. And Grig wasn’t likely to check on him until
after midnight. Nodding, he slid out of the booth to follow.
As they jogged along the dark sidewalk, Will asked Briar, “What is
‘Mayflower’?”
“Mayflower Tobacco Company. They’re one of the big three
magic companies I was telling you about. Magic ain’t their primary
business, they mostly just manufacture regular cigarettes. But they got
a huge magical sideline making Golden Bat Cigarettes ... ever hear of
‘em?”
Will grunted assent. He remembered them—the black-papered,
magically-infused cigarettes that came in beautiful green and gold
packages. The cigarettes the Dorians smoked to give themselves an
“interesting” pallor.
“Mayflower employs about a hundred magical workers to charm
the Golden Bats. I been talking to some of these fellows, and the boss at
Mayflower caught wind of it, sent two-dozen of ‘em to the breadline.
They’ve been making the workers they didn’t fire pull double shifts. A
double shift is murder on the guys who are sensitive. And Selvaggi is
extra sensitive.”
They heard angry, unearthly screams coming from the Mayflower
Tobacco Company a whole block before they reached the building
itself. Inside the cavernous building, lit from high above by strong
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electric floodlights, dozens of cigarette rolling machines clanked away
noisily. Before each machine, workers in stained white aprons, stood
busily sorting and packing cigarettes as fast as the machines could spit
them out into long square holding trays. These workers seemed to be
carefully ignoring the screams of a man at the far end of the factory
floor, where a large cluster of rolling machines was set off to one side,
expelling cigarettes wrapped in black paper. The workers on these
machines wore black aprons to distinguish them as magical workers,
and while some of them kept to their work, many more stood around
the packing table onto which the screaming man had climbed, kicking
hundreds of black cigarettes onto the floor around him. He was a
powerfully built man, and in his demented rage he’d torn off his apron
and his shirt, and was standing bare-chested under the harsh light.
To Will’s horror, he could see tendrils of something black writhing
beneath the man’s skin like fat burrowing centipedes.
“Jesus,” Briar muttered, charging forward.
“Get down from there, you goddamn anarchist!” The floor boss—
identifiable by his soft white hands and expansive belly—screamed up
at the man.
“Kresswell, it’s your own damn fault!” Briar yelled right in the
fat floor-boss’s face. “What the hell you thinking, making him pull a
double shift? You know Selvaggi is sensitive!”
Kresswell glared at Briar with equal parts disgust and astonishment. “I don’t give two shits if he’s sensitive! He’s hired to do a job and
if he can’t do it he can go find work somewhere else!”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll make it real easy for him,” Briar hissed,
then leaped nimbly up onto the table beside the big man, who was
muttering words to form some kind of spell. He ran his hands over
his body, fingers desperately trying to trace charms onto his own flesh.
Briar pulled Selvaggi’s hands down, forcing them to his sides. The
man struggled and bellowed.
“It hurts!” he shrieked, insensibly. “God, it hurts ... I have to do
something ...”
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“Using magic will just make it hurt worse,” Briar said to him in a
low steady voice. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ll get you help ...”
“He’s costing us hundreds, shutting down this line!” Kresswell
shrieked. He glared around himself at the workers who were standing
and watching. “And what the hell are you all doing? Get back to work!”
Briar was still trying to keep the man’s hands down, keep him from
casting magic. He looked down at Will, his whole body tense with the
strain.
“Grab some of that rope.” He nodded to hemp coil laying by one
of the machines. “If we don’t tie him up we’ll never get him out of
here.”
“That’s company property!” Kresswell said, advancing threateningly when Will moved toward the rope. “Don’t you dare—”
Will dug into his pocket and came up with a five dollar half-eagle—
enough to pay for a whole spool of rope. He threw it at Kresswell, who
fumbled and caught the money, eyeing it with astonishment.
“Where’d you get money like this?” he barked. “You steal this?”
But he made no further attempt to stop them as Will helped Briar
tie Selvaggi’s hands behind his back. The raving man moaned, sobbed,
his fingers twitching as if to sketch the air. Together, Will and Briar
lifted him down from the table. He was very heavy, and when they
tried to help him walk, his feet dragged drunkenly.
Then, things got worse.
A half-dozen men in dark heavy wool coats and low-pulled slouch
hats appeared at the factory’s far door. They were carrying truncheons
and rifles.
All the color drained from Briar’s face. “Hell. Company muscle.
And they’re itching to break heads. C’mon, Will, we’ve got to run.”
Looping their arms between Selvaggi’s bound ones, they dragged
the man in the opposite direction, toward a small access door at the far
corner of the factory floor. But the company men had already sighted
them, and began to give chase, yelling.
Even though he was doing the most to keep the delirious man
on his feet, Will found himself being dragged along as Briar dodged
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213
through dark alleys and backways. Stumbling and panting, they did
not stop until the sounds of their pursuers had grown distant and dim.
Selvaggi collapsed to the frozen ground, moaning and shivering.
“Give him your coat,” Briar commanded harshly. “He doesn’t
have anything else.”
Without a second thought, Will hurried to comply, wrapping the
warm wool around the man’s trembling form. Selvaggi’s flesh was
burning hot to the touch, and the grubby, bruise-like trails of black
under his skin seemed to throb, as if about to burst forth in a tarry
gush. Once Will got the coat around him, Briar took a deep breath
and muttered a few low words under his breath. Then he shook out his
shoulders like a prizefighter, bent down, and picked the huge man up.
He slung him over his shoulder fireman-style, his knees quavering but
not buckling, and began walking toward Grand River Avenue. Briar
smiled wanly at Will’s gape of astonishment.
“I’m tougher’n I look, kid,” he puffed. “We got to get him to
Greektown or he’s done for. Come on.”
Luckily, the downtown streetcar on Grand River Avenue was
not long in coming. The other passengers gaped as Briar slung the
whimpering Selvaggi into the car, but Briar was interested only in the
man’s suffering, kneeling next to him, putting a soothing hand on his
throat, murmuring more low, comforting words. Briar and Will hauled
Selvaggi off the car at Gratiot Avenue, which Will remembered without fondness as being in the vicinity of the Hotel Acheron, the dive
where he and Jenny had spent their first night in Detroit.
“Sorry to have got you mixed up in all this,” Briar said, as they
dragged Selvaggi along Gratiot. “Good thing those thugs didn’t catch
us. That would have been tough to explain to your folks at Tesla
Industries.”
As they turned down Beaubien, Will noticed that the signs for the
restaurants and shops they were passing were in Greek. They finally
came to a narrow brownstone-style storefront with a hand-lettered sign
in the front window printed both in English and Greek: Dr. Lazaros
Gore. Still holding Selvaggi up, Briar had to kick the door with his
214
foot instead of knocking. The door was opened by a tall, olive-skinned
woman. She wore nurse’s whites: a plain white shirtwaist and white
cotton apron, stained brown in places with iodine. Her hair was neatly
tucked up under a white muffin cap.
“Oh, Harley,” she sighed, stepping forward to help. In one swift
movement, she wrapped Selvaggi’s arm around her shoulder and
lifted him over the threshold.
“Good evening, Irene,” Briar greeted her with odd formality.
“This one’s just lost his job, so you got yourself another charity case.”
“I’ve got money,” said Will, following Briar over the threshold. “I
can pay.”
The nurse glanced back at Will, frowning. Then she looked at
Briar. “Who is this swell fellow?”
“His name’s Will Edwards,” Briar said. “He was buying me dinner
when this happened. He’s a good egg.”
They brought Selvaggi into a receiving room just off the main
hall. As they laid him out on a sturdy table, an older man entered from
the back room, clearly drawn by the commotion. He was in gartered
shirtsleeves and was holding a copy of the evening paper. Removing
his reading glasses from his face, he looked them all over curiously.
The old man’s gaze lingered, though, on Selvaggi, as the nurse removed the coat Will had wrapped around him. The big man’s torso
was swirling with moving bruises, yellow and purple and black. He
looked as if he was being pummeled by invisible fists.
Laying his paper aside, the old man clucked his tongue unhappily. “Dear, dear, dear,” he said, running his fingers lightly over some
particularly swollen places on the man’s skin. “He’s positively riddled
with Exunge. He’s done far too much magic.”
“Gee, you think?” Briar deadpanned. He’d taken up a position
near the door and was watching the proceedings with dark eyes.
The doctor gave Briar a reproachful look. “I’ve seen him before,
yes?”
“Yes,” said Briar.
“But not this bad, before,” the doctor said.
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“He’s got kids to feed,” Briar said. “His wife died last year, he’s one
foot out of the poorhouse. What else do you expect him to do?”
The doctor sighed heavily. “Well, let us see if we can get him fixed
up again. Irene, are you ready?”
The nurse nodded. She’d already assembled a small tray containing just one simple piece of equipment—a razor. Will watched with
horrified fascination as she swiftly drew the blade across Selvaggi’s
chest, leaving three parallel trails of blood. The cuts were not deep,
just enough to make the blood well up from the man’s skin, quick and
strong and black. Looking closer, Will saw that the man must have
been cut like this before—many other light silver scars crisscrossed his
skin. Irene placed one strong brown hand on his chest and began massaging the blood over his heart. Then the doctor, who was standing
across the table opposite from her, placed a hand over hers. He closed
his eyes and began murmuring something, a guttural kind of language
that didn’t sound like Greek.
Irene reached below the high collar of her white blouse, accidentally streaking it with blood, and withdrew a small two-chambered
pendant. Will’s eyes widened, for he knew what it was instantly. He’d
remembered seeing illustrations of them in the Dreadnought Stanton
books. It was an alembic, a kind of power-channeling pendant that
was unique to one—and only one—type of magical practitioner.
“They’re ... sangrimancers,” Will whispered to Briar, who snorted.
“Well, hell! I guess you are a genius, just like everyone says.”
Will watched as the alembic in Irene’s hand began to glow.
“I’ve never heard of sangrimancer doctors,” he breathed, watching
as the doctor and his nurse chanted in unison, passing the glowing
alembic over the man’s body, the allergic swelling beneath his skin
subsiding and fading as they did.
“Seems there’s a lot you ain’t never heard of,” Briar said. “Dr.
Gore’s the best in Greektown. And him and his daughter are the finest
people you’ll ever meet.”
Will could almost feel the man’s pain subsiding. The black substance, which Dr. Gore had called Exunge, was mostly gone now,
216
leaving only faint smudgy traces. Breathing deeply, the man was soon
asleep.
“All right, that should be enough,” Dr. Gore said, withdrawing his
hand from Irene’s. He looked at his daughter with concern. “Are you
all right, my dear?”
Irene had grown exceptionally pale, and now there were dark
circles under her eyes—the wan Dorian pallor Will recognized. A sangrimancer nurse risking a bout of magical allergy to save a stranger
from his? The very idea made Will’s head spin.
“I’m fine,” said Irene softly, withdrawing her hands and going to
wash them. When she returned with hot water and bandages to tend
to the man’s wounds, Dr. Gore took them from her.
“I’ll take care of that,” he said. “You go lie down for a bit.”
“No, I will—”
“Harley,” Dr. Gore called over his shoulder. “Please talk sense into
her.”
Briar crossed the room in two strides and wrapped his arm around
Irene’s waist. She was much taller than him, and larger, but she leaned
against him nonetheless. “Come on,” he murmured fondly. “You gotta
stay strong for the cause.” Irene nodded, compliant, and as they left the
room Dr. Gore eyed Will.
“So, I heard you say you had money,” he said tartly, as he began
cleaning the wounds on the man’s chest. Will dug out all the spare change
he had left after the evening’s activities, regretting that he’d thrown a
whole five-dollar gold piece at the odious floor boss. But the handful of
coins seemed satisfactory to Dr. Gore. After daubing Selvaggi’s chest
with a towel, he washed his hands again with strong-smelling soap, then
began laying on strips of bandage. The man’s chest rose and fell with
peaceful regularity beneath the doctor’s deft, careful touch.
“Will he be all right?” Will asked.
Dr. Gore shrugged. “That depends on what you mean. This time,
he will recover. But I’ve seen him so many times before. For someone like
him, someone so sensitive to Exunge, using any magic is very damaging
to the system. He will die young. So no, he won’t be all right.”
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Will felt the terrible injustice of it—that this man had to put his life in
jeopardy just so he could keep himself and his children out of the poorhouse. But despite his sympathy, Will was more curious about something
Dr. Gore had said earlier. “What does that word mean, Exunge?”
“The tendrils of black you saw moving under his skin, that is
Exunge,” Dr. Gore said. “The substance represents the toxic residuals
that are left after one works magic. If one works too much magic, it
builds up in the system, causing illness. If too much builds up, death.”
There was the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, and Briar
poked his head into the examining room. He punched Will on the arm.
“C’mon kid, I’ll walk you back. Don’t want you to catch hell with
the wife.”
Will’s heart leapt, and he checked his wristwatch. It was almost midnight. Jenny probably wasn’t worried yet—she was used to him working late—but what if Grig happened to check in at the apartment and
discovered that he hadn’t been home? He grabbed his coat.
“Thank you for your patronage!” Dr. Gore’s voice called after them,
ironically, as they left. “Please try not to come again!”
Will hadn’t a nickel left in his pocket after paying Dr. Gore, so he
and Briar had to walk back, the cold night air urging them briskly along.
“Sangrimancer doctors,” Will said again, still hardly able to believe it.
“I always thought sangrimancers were evil through and through.”
“Yeah, that’s what all the Dreadnought Stanton books want you to
believe,” Briar scoffed, turning up his collar and jamming his hands
deep in his pockets. “But those are kids books, and you’re no kid.”
“It’s not just the Dreadnought Stanton books,” said Will softly.
“Everyone knows they torture people. I mean, they have to. They have
to empower the blood they take, with suffering, right? “
Briar lifted a thoughtful eyebrow. “Sangrimancers do draw power
from blood charged by human emotion,” he allowed. “Suffering, misery, despair ...” he paused, looked at Will. “But you don’t have to torture
a man for him to feel misery. I saw enough misery in the coalfields back
in Kentucky ... Hell, I see enough of it in the factories here in Detroit,
218
every day ... to fuel magic bigger than you can imagine. Dr. Gore and
Irene, they take that suffering and use it to help people. They take the
suffering out of their patients’ blood. And that’s why I say they’re the
finest people you’ll ever meet.”
Will absorbed this silently.
“Sure, sangrimancy can be exploitative,” Briar concluded, tucking
his chin against his chest and pulling his muffler up. “But it’s also the
only kind of magic that has the capacity not to be.”
Will looked at him incredulously. “How do you figure that?”
“Sangrimancy is the only kind of magic where there can be conscious cooperation,” Briar said. “In credomancy, one person can’t have
power unless they fool or manipulate some other person. And that other
person can’t agree to be fooled, ‘cause that would defeat the whole purpose. In animancy, magic is drawn from spirits that don’t have any kind
of conscious thought ... natural spirits that can’t agree nor cooperate,
only respond according to their nature. Are you getting me?”
“But someone can agree to let a sangrimancer use his blood,” Will
said, with soft surprise. He’d never thought of it that way before.
“Bingo,” Briar said. “So what them Dreadnought Stanton books
say ain’t necessarily false—‘cause at it’s worst, sangrimancy is the worst
of all the kinds of magic. But they ain’t true either, because at its best, it
can also be the best.”
Will took this in. “You’d think we’d hear about those kinds of sangrimancers once in a while,” he murmured thoughtfully.
Briar snorted, breath congealing white. “Not in a Dreadnought
Stanton book, you won’t. Like I said, they’re kids’ books, for kids. When
you grow up, you learn different.” He paused, then added in a mutter,
“It’s just a goddamn shame that in this world, most people don’t ever
grow up at all.”
Chapter Twelve
The Goês’ Confession
Ten days until the full moon
Dear Will:
No word from Mother about the private investigators, but no more
urgent telegrams from you either, so I suppose things have settled
down for you in Detroit.
The good news is I’ve obtained several days of leave from the
Institute, and I will be coming to Detroit on December 16.
I am very much looking forward to seeing you,
Ben
G
ood morning, blockhead!” Passing behind him, Roher slapped Will
on the back so hard that it made the pen gash the paper of the
report he was writing for Grig. Will glared at Roher as the fat kraut sat
down heavily in his desk chair, grinning and squeaking with renewed
vigor.
But Will said nothing, just laid the ruined paper aside and replaced
it with a fresh sheet. “Good morning, Mr. Roher,” he said, with what
he hoped was quiet dignity.
“How’s that Flume of yours coming?” Roher smirked, rocking
back and forth. “You figured out what a fuse is yet?”
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“Oh, lay off the kid,” Court said in disgust, dropping a thick stack
of papers on Roher’s desk. As he passed Will’s desk he gave him a conspiratorial grin, twirling a finger around his head to suggest imaginary
blonde braids.
“You stay out of this, you nitwit,” Roher glared after him. “You
just stick to kissing your pictures of Marie Curie.”
“She’s smarter than you’ll ever be!” Court catcalled back. “And a
whole lot prettier, too!”
Will hoped that would be the end of that morning’s unpleasantness, that Roher would quit talking and just stick to his stupid squeaking. But Grig was out of the office and Roher wasn’t one to pass up a
chance like that. Leaping back out of his chair, he snatched something
off his desk, and came over to Will, bending over his desk to speak to
him in a low voice. Will recoiled—usually Roher favored the ranged
attack.
Roher slid a paper over the fresh sheet that Will had intended to
start working on. He said nothing for a moment, just let Will stare at
it dumbly.
It was a flyer—a facsimile document clearly duplicated with the
intention of issuing it to multiple offices—with two grainy pictures on
it. The pictures were of himself and Jenny.
“Is that your wife?” Roher whispered in Will’s ear. “She’s real
pretty, blockhead. How’d you land a wife like that?”
The bottom of the flyer bore the logo of the Pinkerton Agency, the
familiar wide-open eye with the text “We Never Sleep” written under
it. The heading on the flyer was short but humiliating:
Sought: Two Runaway Children
Will’s face flushed with rage as he read over the text: Loving families
in California eagerly desire the subjects’ return ... Subjects are known to be in
Detroit, Michigan ... subjects are in extreme danger ...
Extreme danger—that was rich! Was there no lie Father wouldn’t
tell just to get his way? Cheeks burning, Will pushed the paper back in
Roher’s direction. “Mr. Tesla is taking care of it.”
The GoÊs’ Confession
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“Mr. Tesla is taking care of you,” Roher continued, very softly.
“But I’m sure he doesn’t give a pin about your pretty little wife. In fact,
I’m sure he figures your pretty little wife is nothing but a distraction.
What if someone told the Pinkertons where she was at? What if they
snatched her out of that love-nest you share and hauled her home?
You could move in here with us. Oh, it would be such fun having you
around the dormitory.
Will turned, furious, but Roher had already backed away, laughing
as he returned to his desk.
“Will and Jenny Edwards, sitting in a tree ...” he sing-songed.
“R-u-n-n-i-n-g ...”
Something cold and dark overcame Will suddenly, a feeling stronger and more violent than he’d ever known. The feeling spread through
his whole body, turning his limbs to ice and fire at the same time. He
saw himself going over to Roher, grabbing him by his tie, bashing his
face on his desk until all the papers were bloody.
But he did not move. Instead, he just sat at his desk, looking down
at the flyer for a long time. Then he folded it and placed it quietly in
his desk drawer. He looked at the blank fresh sheet of paper that lay
beneath it.
For an attack to be most devastating, it had to be delivered when
the moment was right. And it had to be delivered before it was too late.
Taking up his pen, he dipped it into the inkwell and quickly began
to write.
Dear Mr. Tesla ...
Later that week, the book Court had asked to have delivered to
Will’s mailbox arrived, and when they were finally able to sneak away
for a smoke so Will could give it to him, Court was so excited that he
didn’t even light up, just seized the package and began tearing at the
paper like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Oh gee!” Court raised the book before himself, regarding it with
solemn awe. “I can’t believe I got it!”
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Whatever the source of Court’s excitement, it couldn’t possibly be
the result of the book’s appearance. It didn’t just look cheap, it looked
hasty and furtive, as if it had been printed in someone’s basement.
It had a cover of rough brown paper, the kind of paper one might
expect to wrap pornographic contents. While the title—The Goês’
Confession—wasn’t at all titillating, when Will saw the book’s subtitle,
he experienced a strange thrill.
Veritas vos Liberabit.
“The truth will set you free,” Court translated, seeing where Will’s
gaze rested. But Will did not need a translation. He’d translated those
same Latin words himself, for his father, on his birthday. It was incredible that they should reappear again here.
Court opened the book eagerly.
“You’re not going to read it now, are you?”
Court looked up, his face sharp with intensity. “Damn right I’m
going to read it now!” Will shrugged and left him to it, returning to
his work in Building Three. When, after five hours, Court had not
returned, Will grew curious. And when he snuck back out to look for
him, he found Court in precisely the same place he’d left him, hunched
over the book, pale and shaking as if he’d seen a ghost.
“That must be some book,” Will commented. Court jumped with
a startled squeal. When he saw that it was Will, he held up the book.
“It’s incredible,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “Will, it’s the most
incredible thing I’ve ever read.”
“All right,” Will said, taking a seat on one of the scientific-equipment crates. “Let’s have it.”
Court rubbed a hand over his mouth, eyes darting back and forth.
He was clearly trying to think of the best way to begin.
“So, I’ve always been interested in The Great Change because
there’s a theory that it was geological,” he said. “Like, some kind of
change in the geology of the Earth. But how could a geological change
result in a whole generation suddenly developing an allergy to magic?
That doesn’t make any sense. That’s why I wanted to get this book. I
thought it might shed some light.”
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“And does it?”
“It doesn’t just shed light, it sets the whole world on fire,” Court
whispered. “This book says that it was a geological change. A fundamental alteration of the very structure of the Earth itself.” Court
paused, letting the implication sink in both for Will, and, it seemed,
for himself. “You see, there’s a poorly-understood geological structure
beneath the earth’s surface. It’s called the Mantic Anastomosis. It’s a
big web of a special kind of rock, and it’s wrapped around the earth
like a net. Now, if you read old geology textbooks, they explain that the
Mantic Anastomosis was a kind of processing system for a substance
called geochole. Of course that’s the technical name, but if you read the
popular literature they used to refer to it as Black Exunge ...”
Will must have gasped, for Court paused and looked at him.
“You’ve heard of Black Exunge?”
Will tried to seem casual. “It’s, like, the toxic residuals of magic,
right?”
“Exactly,” Court said. “When humans work magic, this toxic
substance is created. Now, in the old textbooks, they say that it was
the rock web that actually created the Exunge somehow. They didn’t
really understand how even back then. But however it was created,
sometimes large pockets of this Exunge would build up beneath the
ground. And if it reached the earth’s surface, and came in contact with
a living thing, incredible and terrible things were the result.”
“Like what?”
Court hitched closer.
“Aberrancies.” He said in a low, thrilling voice. “Remember reading
about those in history class? How there used to be huge monsters,
giant jackrabbits and things like that? How they’d storm across the
plains, wreaking havoc? Aberrancies were created when something
living came in contact with Exunge. The Exunge had some kind of
mutational effect on them, made them swell up out of control, grow
huge and deranged.”
224
Will blinked, his head spinning. He was thinking about Selvaggi,
and the dark tendrils that had been swirling beneath his skin. Dr. Gore
had said they were Exunge.
“So Exunge is what causes the Black Flu,” Will said, drawing the
conclusion softly. “I mean, allergy to Exunge. It’s not allergy to magic,
it’s allergy to Exunge.”
Court nodded, tapping the book. “Exactly. And see, that’s what
this fundamental scientific alteration did. It changed the very nature of
how Exunge was produced and processed. Before The Great Change,
the Mantic Anastomosis generated and processed all the world’s
Exunge, on a huge global scale. After The Great Change, human
beings themselves generated and processed Exunge, on a tiny personal
scale. If a human being worked magic, the Exunge that resulted from
working the magic stayed in his body. The more magic he worked, the
more Exunge was created.”
“That’s ... incredible,” Will said. But it made perfect sense. Court
was saying that all human beings born after The Great Change had a
distinctly different physical structure from their parents and grandparents—and that was the very definition of the Malmantic Generation.
“So how could something like this just happen?”
“It didn’t just happen,” Court said. “It was engineered. By a bunch
of Russian scientists in the 1870s. They created something called
Lyakhov’s Anodyne, and this Anodyne somehow restructured the
Mantic Anastomosis. And the crazy thing is, these Russian scientists
developed the Anodyne because the Earth told them to.”
Will blinked again, twice this time.
“What are you talking about, the Earth told them to?”
“Oh, this is where it gets really crazy,” Court nodded. “See, the
Mantic Anastomosis is not just a giant web of magic rock. It’s a giant
living web of conscious magic rock.”
“Oh, hogwash,” Will blurted reflexively. “With fried hog and a
side of hog stew.”
Court snickered. “I’m just telling you what the book says.”
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“So how did the Earth go about telling these Russian scientists to
fundamentally change its own structure?” Will asked skeptically.
“Alcestis,” Court said.
“Who?”
“Well, that’s what she’s called in the book, but that’s just a pseudonym, based on a tale from Greek mythology. It doesn’t give her real
name, but you don’t really need to know it. The important thing is that
she was a real person. A witch. She had some kind of special psychic
connection with the consciousness of the Mantic Anastomosis. So she
became kind of an avatar for the earth—its voice, its human representative. Speaking on the earth’s behalf, she relayed that the earth itself
wished for the implementation of the Anodyne.” He paused. “And so,
they took her word for it.”
Will thought through this.
“So,” he attempted to summarize. “Before The Great Change, human beings could work magic without any kind of real limitation—all
the toxic residuals would simply build up within the Earth. Of course,
sometimes you’d get Aberrancies, big huge monsters tearing up the
plains and stuff like that. But after the Great Change, people couldn’t
work magic without immediately suffering from the toxic residue that
magic created.”
“Sounds simple when you put it that way,” Court said. “But you
haven’t even mentioned the Black Flu.”
Will nodded. “Some people are just naturally sensitive to Exunge,”
he murmured, remembering. Then he looked at Court. “But it was
children who died in the Black Flu epidemics! They never worked any
magic!”
“Life is magic,” Court said. “Just by being alive, we humans work
a tiny bit of magic. We work a tiny bit of magic, and create a tiny bit
of Exunge. The children who were intensely allergic to Exunge ... they
were the ones who got the Black Flu and died immediately. Those who
were less allergic ... they lived longer, but became twisted, deformed
wrecks.”
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Will thought of Claire—and his sister Catherine. Ben had written that the children who suffered the worst cases of Black Flu were
thought to be those with the greatest inborn magical talents. Perhaps
magic just flowed more freely through their bodies ... and after The
Great Change, that physical anomaly would have been a death
sentence.
“Alcestis must have felt like an idiot,” Will commented wryly, after
a long thoughtful pause. “I guess she was kicking herself for taking
advice from the Earth, huh? A million dead worldwide will do that to
a witch.”
“Oh, it gets worse,” Court said, shaking his head gravely. “Much
worse.”
“How can it get worse?”
Court took a deep breath. At this point in his exegesis, he had to
fortify himself with a cigarette. He withdrew one and lit it, sending
smoke curling up over his head.
“So, as you say, a million dead worldwide is definitely a cause for
concern. And so in 1880, the same group of warlocks and scientists
who had created the Anodyne—a kind of cabal, let’s call them—
convened a special summit. Alcestis and her consort—some guy the
book calls Admetus, he isn’t that interesting—traveled to New York
City where the summit was being held. The cabal wanted her there
to channel the spirit of the Earth so they could get some goddamn
answers about just what the hell it was thinking.”
“And what did the Earth say?” Will asked. “‘Oops?’”
Court released a grim, graveyard chuckle. “No. The Earth said:
‘Yeah, I know.’”
“What?”
“The Earth knew exactly what it was doing. The Earth knew what
would happen. It wanted it to happen.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Will whispered, horrified.
“See, when Alcestis made a psychic connection with the consciousness of the Earth, it infected her mind with all its alien hugeness and
strangeness. But she infected its mind too. She infected it with human
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notions it had never experienced before. Paranoia, hatred, and fear—
fear of death, especially. The consciousness of the Earth had no way
of knowing about death before—not its own death, anyway. It had
previously understood existence as eternal. By bonding with Alcestis’
mind, it learned of death, and came to fear it.”
Court paused, letting his words hang before saying, finally:
“And it came to feel that humanity was its greatest threat. It decided that it would be better off without us.”
Will stared at him, open-mouthed. “You have got to be kidding,”
he said finally. “So why all the nonsense about Anodynes and witches
and everything ... if the earth had decided it wanted humanity eradicated, surely it could have found a more effective way?”
“Shh!” Court said, anxiously. “Don’t give it any ideas! But you’re
right, it seems like it would be pretty simple just to wipe us all out with
fire and flood, and I have no idea why, if it feels that badly about us,
it doesn’t just do so. Maybe it doesn’t understand its own strength.
Whatever the reason, that was why it wanted the Anodyne implemented in the first place. As a weapon against humanity.”
“But now that it had seen the actual results, it found them unsatisfactory. It was displeased by the fact they weren’t worse. That it
wasn’t killing humans off faster. Apparently impatience was one of the
human traits the Earth inherited from the witch Alcestis.”
“Jesus!” Will blurted. “She’s probably the one witch in all history
we should have burned!”
“If it hadn’t been her, it would have been someone else.” Court
spoke with an infuriating air of philosophical distance. “Anyway, the
members of the cabal knew that they were in hot water. They had the
whole spirit of the Earth sitting right there in front of them, casually
telling them that it was very disappointed that all of humanity wasn’t
dying off as quickly as it would like. So what does this cabal do?”
“What is there to do?” Will said.
“Precisely,” Court said. “All they could do was stall for time and
hope that they’d figure something out. So they had to placate the
earth. Humans weren’t dying as fast as it wanted ... so humans had
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to be made to die faster. And so, they struck a bargain with the earth.
They called it ‘The Settlement.’”
“A Settlement—to kill people?”
“To kill very specific people,” Court said. “All of them Old Users,
the most powerful witches and warlocks of the last generation. They
were still using huge quantities of magic under the old rules, and for
the Earth, they were like cavities in a tooth—painful and annoying. So
the Earth demanded that the cabal begin sacrificing these Old Users
on its command.”
“And did they?”
“Apparently so,” Court said. “The book says there was a whole
organization of warlocks created to do so. Fire to fight fire, I guess.
They’re called the Agency.”
“They’re the ones you said were destroying the books!” Will
remembered.
Court nodded gravely. “I can see why they’d want to, given that
this book doesn’t make them sound very nice at all. See, the head of
this Agency gets his orders directly from Alcestis herself. The Earth
tells her who to kill—and she tells him.”
“And if he refuses to comply?”
“Hell to pay,” Court said. “You may not be a geologist like me,
Will, but surely you know what the Earth can do if it wants. Natural
disasters like Krakatoa, Tunguska, the great floods in Galveston ... all
of these happened after the Settlement. And they all corresponded to
occasions when the cabal failed to comply with the Earth’s commands
to the slightest letter.”
“Just like I said!” Will lifted his hands. “The Earth doesn’t need
witches or Settlements. It can destroy us at its whim. So why all the
complication?”
“Maybe it has something to do with love,” Court said, thoughtfully. “The witch infected the spirit of the Earth with human thoughts
and emotions. Maybe the thing that’s hurt us the most is also the thing
that’s protecting us.”
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“All right, now for the big question,” Will said. “What does the
book say we’re supposed to do?”
“Do?” Court shrugged. “It’s a confession, not a handbook.”
“If it’s a confession, then someone must be confessing,” Will said.
“And whoever it is must know what we’re supposed to do. He must
have some idea, at least. Who is the Goês?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Court replied. “But if he was mixed up in
this—and he must have been, if he knows the whole story the way he
does—I don’t know if I want to take any advice from him. But I have
to give him credit for one thing. He chose the right name. Because he
sure as hell is one big fool.”
Chapter Thirteen
First and Last
Five days until the full moon
T
hat Sunday, Will finished the schematics.
He made the final ink stroke, allowed it to dry, and looked down
at the completed pile. He was very proud of them. While working
on them, he’d thought through what happened with his prototype,
and had come up with several important improvements and design
enhancements. He’d even added a fuse. It was a wonderful piece of
work.
A work of genius.
He’d done it.
It was late afternoon, and he and Jenny were both sitting in their
accustomed places at the table in the breakfast nook. Jenny looked
tired; her face was drawn and sallow, and not only had the usual curl
escaped from her hairpins, but it had been joined by a sinuous tangle
of its fellows.
He was just about to tell her the good news when something very
strange happened.
A voice spoke in his head.
She’s very pretty, Mooncalf.
The sound of it made him nearly jump out of his skin. It was like
his own thoughts, but it was also just like when Ma’am would Send
for him ... clear as spoken words. But it was not Ma’am’s voice. It was
a man’s voice, tinged with a strange, broad accent like some two-bit
British actor in a Teslaphone dramaplay.
First and Last
231
He rubbed his face, ran his fingers through his hair. He was just
tired. Exhausted. God, he was looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
Jenny glanced at him. “What’s wrong?” she asked softly.
“Nothing,” he smiled. “Everything’s perfect. I’ve finished.”
Her eyes widened.
“Really?” she said. “You’re done? Done done?”
“Done done,” he said, pushing the drawings toward her. “They’re
all yours now.”
“Oh Will, how wonderful!” Jumping to her feet, she raced over to
hug him, and he hugged her back. He didn’t want to let her go. Finishing
the schematics meant something else. It meant she was going to leave.
And, at that moment, he realized that he didn’t want her to.
Flushing, she extracted herself from his arms. “You’re tired,” she
said. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”
He nodded. He was tired, so very tired. He walked to his room
with heavy steps, his feet leaden and dragging. But just as he was falling asleep, the voice spoke in his head again:
She’s leaving you, Mooncalf.
The words made Will’s heart race with panic, and suddenly he
was wide awake. Rushing into the front room, he saw that it was true.
Jenny was gone. He looked in the closet. She’d taken her fur coat.
Rushing back to his room, he looked out the window, and caught
a glimpse of something small and fuzzy and brisk sneaking down the
back alley.
Deceitful little cat.
Throwing on his coat, Will rushed out to follow his wife.
Will caught sight of her waiting at the streetcar stop near Winslow
Street. Factory men looked at her as they passed; Will felt sharp,
surprising twinges of jealousy as they did. He glanced at his watch.
The streetcar wouldn’t come for another ten minutes, so he jogged up
Grand River Avenue to wait at the prior stop. Thus he was already
settled in the car—collar pulled up and hat pulled down, face buried
in his chest, the very picture of a napping commuter—when Jenny
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climbed on. She took a seat at the other end of the car. He watched
her beneath the brim of his hat.
She rode the streetcar all the way downtown, exiting at the Campus
Martius stop. On a Sunday afternoon-becoming-evening, the streets
were mostly still, save for a few late-afternoon shoppers, weighed down
with wrapped packages, hurrying homeward. The downtown shops
were all richly decorated for Christmas, drifts of tinsel sparkling in
the colored light of fat electric bulbs. On a busy corner, a little group
of carolers stood singing before a bucket, their hand-lettered sign
proclaiming them representatives of the Detroit Scharfian Assembly,
collecting donations for the ongoing relief of the Cursed nationwide.
While Shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The Angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone all around.
The sound of singing faded behind him as Will followed Jenny
down Griswold Street, into the heart of the city’s financial district.
Just past Fort Street, Jenny turned to enter a very tall office building,
faced with glossy white terra-cotta tile. He watched through the front
glass as she climbed into one of the elevators. The sweeping arrow on
the dial above the elevator traversed the floor numbers in a half-moon
sweep, and it did not stop until reaching its furthest extreme—Floor 23.
The penthouse.
He entered the building and strode across the white marble floor.
He did not press the call button, but simply stood before the elevator
doors, watching as the movement of the arrow sketched the car’s descent. When it had returned to the ground floor, the elevator operator
opened the door. He startled when he saw Will standing there.
“Why, mister!” The elevator operator was a slight black man
whose uniform included a bright red coat, gold-trimmed cap, and a
smile that did not reach his eyes. “You gave me a scare. I didn’t hear
you ring, sir.”
“What’s on the penthouse?” Will said, taking a step forward. He
did not enter the elevator, but rather positioned himself so that the
First and Last
233
operator could not close the door. “And the girl you just gave a ride up.
What’s she doing here on a Sunday, anyway?”
A slight furrow of his brow was the only indication that the elevator operator found these questions unusual or impertinent. He continued smiling, but his next words were less obliging than the first ones
had been: “What are you, a cop?”
“No, I’m not a cop,” said Will. He dug in his pocket for a couple of
bucks, and pressed them into the man’s hand. “I work for the Bureau
of Printing and Engraving.”
The man rubbed the bills between his fingers as he considered his
answer. Then, he pocketed them.
“That’s Miss Hansen,” he said, finally. “She’s come here ‘bout every day for the past couple weeks. She always rides up to see Mr. Hart
in his office on the penthouse.”
“Did you say Mr. Hart?” Will recalled the telegram he’d intercepted. Hart has been informed of your arrival ... waste no time.
“Mr. Atherton Hart, President of Hart Financial.” The man eyed
Will. “I guess you don’t want me to run you up there?”
Will shook his head and stepped back. Exiting the building, he
crossed the street to watch the door. He wrapped his coat tightly
around himself against the chill evening wind.
Silly Mooncalf. Trusting a woman.
That voice again. Will rubbed his temples grimly. Why did he keep
hearing it? Was some malign force speaking to him? Ridiculous—no
malign force had any reason to be interested in him. The voice kept
commenting immediately and directly on his present experience, reflecting his own confused feelings back to him in the harshest and
darkest of mirrors. So was he cracking up? No, he concluded—he was
just very, very tired. He needed to get some sleep.
Leaning against the wall of a dark alleyway, Will waited for a long
time. As he waited, he felt illustrated eyes on his back—Dreadnought
Stanton’s eyes. An Edison Studios advance-man must have recently
passed this way, for the alley’s brick walls had been freshly plastered with colorful advertisements for The Warlock’s Curse. And that
234
advance-man must have had Scharfian missionaries hot on his heels,
for in several instances Dreadnought Stanton’s mystical green gaze
had been overlaid with the sterner visage of Brother Phleger, on lesscolorful handbills exhorting the faithful to attend an old-time revival
that the good Brother would be conducting at the Detroit Scharfian
Fellowship that Friday, December 16th. The sick would be healed,
the faithless baptized, and the repentant welcomed home—all to the
prodigal melodies of Little Sanctity Snow, “God’s Special Snowflake,”
on the all-electrical organ.
Nonsense pasted upon nonsense.
By the time Jenny finally emerged from the building, the hour
had grown late. She was not alone. A handsome young man in a suit
of scrupulously modern tailoring escorted her to the curb, and stood
waiting with her. Atherton Hart, no doubt. He was at least twentyfour, and looked like he’d stepped straight out of an advertisement for
golf clubs. He had Jenny’s arm, and was smiling down at her as he
spoke. When she looked up at him, she smiled back.
Hart waited with Jenny until an autocab pulled up. He helped her
into it, speaking a few words to the driver and sending her on her way.
He’s sending her home, Will thought, relieved.
Atherton Hart watched after the cab for a long moment before returning to the warmth of his presumably luxurious penthouse office. It
could have been worse, Will told himself. He could have found himself
following them both to a hotel. But he realized just how perilous the
situation was. Jenny was only seventeen—almost as old as Will, sure,
but she was a girl. A girl running around with no one to protect her,
visiting men in penthouses, all alone, late at night. If something happened to her ... if someone took advantage of her ... he’d be to blame.
He could never forgive himself.
Then, a panicked realization seized him. Jenny was heading home.
There was no way he could get there before her. She’d be terrified
when she found him gone.
Good.
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The voice in his head was bitter and sinuous. It made Will shudder.
But suddenly, he realized that he agreed with the voice. Good. Let
Jenny worry about him. Let her see what it was like to have someone
run off and not tell you anything. Good.
Jerking his coat around himself, he began walking back along
Griswold. He found that he recognized the area ... he’d walked near
here with Harley Briar, when they had brought the sick man to Dr.
Gore’s. When he reached Gratiot, he turned up it, let his feet take him
to Greektown, and knocked on the door of Dr. Gore’s home. Once
again, it was Irene who opened the door, surprised to find him on her
doorstep. She was not wearing her nurse’s whites now, but rather a
pretty and proper Sunday outfit with a high collar. Around her neck,
hanging from a thin gold chain, something shone—not the alembic
Will remembered, but a little gold cross. When she finally did speak,
it was not to him, but rather to call behind herself into the receiving
room.
“Harley, it’s for you.”
Behind her, Harley Briar emerged. To Will’s surprise, he was
dressed up in a suit—a secondhand suit with frayed cuffs, but a suit
nonetheless.
“Will?” Briar’s face was both concerned and curious. “What the
hell are you doing down here, kid? And how’d you know to find me?”
Will didn’t answer immediately. He hadn’t known Briar would be
here. He’d just known that he was feeling sick, and disoriented, and
he’d ended up here. Maybe he’d been thinking of the man in the factory, Selvaggi.
“I don’t know,” said Will, his teeth chattering. “Sorry to bother
you.”
Briar and Irene exchanged glances as he turned to go.
“Wait,” Briar called after him, before he’d reached the bottom
step. “I’ll get my coat.”
Briar led Will to the Mechanic Street Bar, which was close to Dr.
Gore’s, and quiet and dark and warm. The air was blue with the
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smoke of cheap cigarettes. Will and Briar took seats at the far end of
the long bar, crammed close together by the crowd of similar men in
similar circumstances. Will didn’t know what to say at first, so he drank
thick walnut-brown ale until his body felt heavy and words began to
suggest themselves.
“So you know Jenny? My wife?” Will said. “I think I’m falling in
love with her.”
Briar wiped foam from his lips. “You’re already married, but you’re
just now falling in love with her?”
“It’s a long story,” Will said.
“I got time,” Briar said.
“We needed to get to Detroit,” Will said. “And she could get her
hands on some inheritance money if she got married. So we got married. It was supposed to just be a business arrangement.”
“That’s all marriage ever is,” Briar shrugged. “Usually a better
deal for the husband, though.”
“It hasn’t been a good deal for me,” Will said. “She thinks it’s still
business, but I think I’m falling in love with her. And I think ... I think
there might be someone else.”
Briar made a sound of sympathy. “That’s rough. I can promise
you, it ain’t worth trying to change a woman’s mind over something
like that.” He took a long drink of his beer. “Ain’t worth trying to
change a woman’s mind over much of anything, really.”
Will nodded. He sure knew how strong Jenny’s mind could be.
Briar drained his glass, gestured for another round. While he waited,
he took out his pouch of tobacco and began rolling a cigarette between his stained, scarred fingers.
“So, have you told her?”
Will shook his head. “I don’t think I can. I ... I don’t think it would
be fair. She’d think I was trying to keep her from leaving.”
“Wait, she’s leaving you?” Briar shook his head with confusion as
he tucked the cigarette between his lips. “You’re in love with her ... but
you think there’s someone else ... and she’s leaving you? I gotta say, kid,
it don’t look good.”
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“She’s leaving me for other reasons,” Will looked up angrily. “She’s
got plans. She’s ... got some kind of project she’s working on, and she
won’t tell me what it is. She’s so secretive. And my father is looking for
us, and she thinks that if she goes away, he won’t bother me anymore.
Because she knows that I want to stay at Tesla Industries more than
anything.” He paused, and added softly. “Almost anything.”
“Now that sounds better,” Briar said soothingly. “She cares about
you.”
The words, spoken aloud, warmed Will’s heart. Or maybe it was
just the fresh glass of beer that the barman had brought, which he
seized and downed in one protracted swallow. He gestured for another.
“I’m worried about her, Harley,” Will whispered. “I’m afraid she’s
doing things that are dangerous. She thinks she can do anything. She’s
so smart, she believes she can always think her way out. But what if
she can’t? What if she’s in over her head?”
“What if you’re in over yours?” Briar retorted. He half-stood,
leaning over the bar to light his cigarette at a flickering gas jet designed
for cigars of ages past. “Just ‘cause she’s a girl don’t naturally mean she
don’t know what she’s doing. Don’t you trust her?”
“Of course I trust her,” Will snapped back. “But that doesn’t mean
I trust anyone else. I know what the world can do to pretty girls.”
“Oh you do, do you?” Briar’s voice was amused. “You havin’ such
a vast experience of the wicked ways of the world and all.”
Will ignored the dig. “Whatever she’s mixed up in, it involves
money. A lot of money. A hundred thousand dollars.”
Briar’s eyes widened, and he seemed concerned. “People with
money like that are the most dangerous sort to get mixed up with,” he
allowed. “Money makes people do terrible things.”
“She’s mentioned something called ‘The Consortium.’” Will recalled Jenny’s threat at the Asylum in Stockton. “Have you ever heard
of it?”
Briar shook his head thoughtfully, exhaling acrid smoke through
his nose. “I’ve heard of lots of consortiums. Consortiums, conglomer-
238
ates, syndicates, trusts ... don’t have much use for any of ‘em. What
kind of consortium did she mean?”
Will shrugged; he had no idea. Of course he’d heard of business
consortiums too ... and if anyone was likely to be in one of them, it
was that slick Atherton Hart fellow she’d gone up to see. But it was
difficult to imagine why a doctor in a mental asylum would be scared
of a business consortium.
Briar was silent for a long time, obviously contemplating Will’s
situation. He drew his glass of beer close to himself.
“Well, I’ll tell you, Will,” he said, turning the glass between his
palms. “Telling someone you love them is a funny thing. It can make
things a whole lot better or a whole lot worse, depending. But there’s
only one thing worse than telling them. It’s not telling them at all.
That’s the only advice I got for you. Sorry.”
It wasn’t any more than Will already knew. But it was good to have
a friend offer it to him. Nodding gratefully, Will raised his hand for
another glass of beer.
By the end of the night Will and Briar had both drunk far more
than they should have, and they had to lean on each other heavily as
they staggered back to Dr. Gore’s. Their path was lit by the glow of
the almost-full moon, multiplied by the light of moonlight towers. The
streets were ghostly-bright.
When Irene found the pair of them collapsed on her doorstep, she
sighed with indulgent disdain, crossed herself quickly, and let them in,
directing them to the receiving room, where Will took the couch and
Briar climbed onto the examining table.
The next morning Will felt much better, despite a hangover of
monstrous proportions. Not wanting to wake the still-snoring Briar, he
let himself quietly out of Dr. Gore’s house, emerging into the wan cold
light. He started back toward Fort Tesla, glancing quickly at his watch.
He had plenty of time to meet Grig, and with luck, his mentor would
never even suspect he’d been gone.
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The activities of the night before seemed a strange blur to him.
He remembered that there had been a voice in his head ... but that
seemed unreal now, as if it was just a story he’d been telling himself.
He couldn’t even remember what the voice had said—he knew it had
made sense at the time, but all he could remember now was harsh
guttural gibberish. He laid it all down to sheer exhaustion. He’d been
working so hard on the schematics. But now, he realized with a sudden
thrill, that was all done with. The schematics were finished. No more
late nights. He could live like a normal person.
Without Jenny.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
Could he really have fallen in love with her, he wondered? But the
answer came to him instantly, so obvious it made him snort at himself.
Sure, who wouldn’t? Who couldn’t fall in love with a girl like that?
Briar was right. He had to tell her.
As Will made his way up Woodward Avenue, he stopped before a
storefront with holiday decorations more cheerful than most, the front
window draped with chains of colored paper and strings of popcorn.
It was a jewelry store—this much he ascertained from the display of
rings and necklaces—small, and not particularly grand. They didn’t
charge him much to set the silver dollar his father had given him into
a necklace, and they did it while he waited.
Then, standing before the shop in the rising sunlight, he opened
the little purple velvet gift box they’d nestled the newly-set necklace in.
He stared at the shining silver, reflecting dawn’s orange and crimson
rays. It really was incredible, he realized. But it wasn’t incredible for all
the strange and detailed reasons Jenny had given him. It was incredible because Jenny’s eyes had lit up when she looked at it, and her
breath had been taken away in wonder.
He clicked the velvet box shut and slid it into his pocket. He
would tell her on Christmas Eve. Surely she wouldn’t leave him before
Christmas. He would give her the necklace and tell her that he loved
her. And he wouldn’t care if she laughed. Actually he knew that he
would care, very much, but he tried not to think about that.
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Will reached the Winslow Street Apartments just as Grig was
stepping out the front door, pulling on his leather gloves. They were
accustomed to meet on the apartment’s front steps for their workday
walk to Fort Tesla, so Will didn’t understand why, when Grig caught
sight of him, his eyes filled with alarm.
“Are you feeling well, Mr. Edwards?” Grig touched his arm with
concern. “You look ... peaked.”
“Fine, Grig,” said Will. And it was true. He did feel fine. The little
velvet box in his pocket made him feel fine. But as they walked to the
Compound, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a nearby window,
and was shocked at how haggard he looked—his cheeks hollow and
sunken, his eyes ringed with dark circles.
But with the little velvet box in his pocket, Will found that his
workday at Tesla Industries went very quickly. He was impervious to
Roher’s sallies and squeaks. As he bent over a soapstone workbench,
wiring up an important subsystem of Grig’s Tri-Dimensionator, he
imagined giving the necklace to Jenny: imagined each of her possible
responses in exquisite or excruciating detail, depending on the nature
of the response. His reveries were so complete, in fact, that when three
strange men came into Building Three around lunchtime, he was one
of the last apprentices to notice.
And when he did, he realized all the other apprentices were frozen
in watchfulness; pens hovering over papers, places in books held with
still fingers.
Building Three did not get many visitors, for Grig liked to keep the
projects they were working on a matter of strict secrecy even from the
other groups on the Compound. But visitors were not unheard of. And
none, in Will’s limited experience, had ever provoked such a response.
The men were all very large and strong-looking, and they all bore
the same official Tesla Industries insignia that the apprentices did—
except these men’s badges read “Security.”
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The visitors strode across the large workfloor, coming to a stop
before Roher’s desk. Roher looked up at them. The squeak of his chair
fell silent. Every apprentice in the room seemed to hold his breath.
“Mr. Max Roher?” one of the men asked, crisply.
Roher nodded assent, but did not speak.
“We are here to escort you from the premises. It has been determined that you have violated the terms of the apprenticeship contract
you signed.”
Will watched with dark satisfaction as all the color drained from
Roher’s face.
“We have received a report that you have been maintaining unauthorized contact with one Miss”—here he consulted his notes—“Greta
Zuffenhausen. Having verified the accuracy of this report, it has been
determined that the only recourse is your immediate expulsion. Please
come with us. You are to take nothing with you. Your personal belongings will be collected and sent.”
Roher stood slowly. He looked around the room, his fat face
stricken.
Will smiled to himself. He did not think of himself as a meanspirited person, so he wasn’t quite sure what compelled him to call
after Roher’s back, as he was being escorted out by the three men:
“Goodbye, blockhead!”
After they left, the room was deathly silent. All the other apprentices turned their eyes to Will. Will was surprised to find that their
gazes were uniformly hostile. He glared back at them before returning
to his work. None of them had liked Roher any better than he had!
What were they all so angry about? Court came over to his desk and
roughly gestured for Will to follow. Once they were outside, Court
thrust his face close to Will’s, his eyes bright with fury.
“You did that?”
“Hell yes I did!” Will snapped back. “You know how he was always
digging me! And you yourself were the one who told me about his
little flirtation with Greta whatever-her-name-was!”
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“I didn’t mean for you to use it to get him kicked out!” Court
yelled, shoving Will backward. Will stumbled, but caught himself.
“Court!” he blurted, shocked.
“You were supposed to tell Roher that you knew,” Court said. “It
would have gotten him off your back. But for God’s sake, you weren’t
supposed to rat him out to Tesla.”
Will swallowed hard. Shame contended with anger, and anger
won. “Well, he broke the apprenticeship contract!” he barked. “He
deserved what he got.”
“We’ve all broken the apprenticeship contract, Will!” Court yelled,
then quickly clapped his hand over his mouth, anxious at having yelled
it so loudly. When he continued, it was in a quiet intense hiss: “Have
you read that contract? It’s impossible not to break that contract! One
bite of meat and you’ve broken the contract! One night in the sack
with your wife and you’ve broken the contract!”
“They took that part out of mine,” Will muttered.
Court’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, that’s right. Because you’re so special.
Because being held to a contract is for other people, for people you
don’t like.”
“Look, I’m sorry you feel that way,” Will said, finally. The words
sounded petulant even to him.
Court shook his head and stared at him.
“You have no idea what you’ve done, do you? Roher will never
work again, Will. Tesla will ruin him. There won’t be a university or a
high school or even a goddamn kindergarten that will even consider him
now. All because you couldn’t take a few tacks on your chair.”
Then, turning on his heel, Court was gone, disappearing back into
Building Three. And Will realized that he had lost his only friend at
Tesla Industries.
None of the other apprentices spoke to him after that. Not at all,
not even when he addressed them directly. And it was clear that none
of them intended to do so again.
Fine, Will thought bitterly. To hell with all of them.
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Later that day, when Grig finally returned to Building Three,
he looked worn-down. He did not return to work on his TriDimensionator, as he was accustomed to do, but rather called all the
apprentices together.
“We’ve all had a very upsetting day,” he said, his voice quavering.
“I would be guilty of great disloyalty to Mr. Tesla if I were to defend
Mr. Roher’s actions. But I must say, I will miss him. He was a young
man of exceptional intelligence and insight, and I am very sad that he
has thrown away, with one foolish indiscretion, what promised to be a
brilliant career.”
Walking back to his desk, Will stumbled over an outstretched foot.
It was Court’s.
“Blockhead,” Court hissed at him, before returning to his work.
Later, walking home with Grig, Will wasn’t sure what he should
say. Grig would certainly know that he’d been the one who’d written
the letter to Tesla, telling him of Roher and his blonde-braided girlfriend. Will had signed his own name to it, sent it through the interoffice mail, unsure if a letter from a lowly apprentice would reach the
notice of the great man. But clearly it had. And clearly the great man
had taken it seriously.
They walked very slowly through the slanting evening light. Grig
kept clearing his throat, as if he wanted to speak about the events of
the day but was having a difficult time doing so.
“Mr. Edwards,” he began formally, then softened. “Will. I want
you to know that I blame myself.”
Will had been expecting anything but that. “What?”
“I allowed Mr. Roher to bully and abuse you, and for that I apologize. I know how he treated you when I was out of the office. In some
ways, I thought it would help you. It gained you the sympathy of the
other apprentices. Mr. Courtenay, in particular, would never have
taken you under his wing had he not felt you needed a friend.”
Grig was apologizing to him? It made Will feel unutterably low.
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“I care very deeply for all my young men,” Grig continued. “For
all his flaws, there was much to admire in Mr. Roher. And no small
amount of genius.”
There was a long silence between them as they came to the front
steps of the Winslow Street Apartments.
“In the end, however, you behaved just as Mr. Tesla would have.
Strictly, and with respect for the rules. Mr. Tesla is a great admirer of
the rules.” Grig paused. “But just between you and me, Will, while Mr.
Tesla has most of the qualities it takes to make a great man—I do not
believe he has all of them.”
Will blinked. Tipping his hat to Will, Grig said, before vanishing
inside:
“Good night. I will see you in the morning. As usual.”
Will stood there for a long time, staring at the closed door. Then,
quietly, he went inside and climbed the stairs to his own apartment.
Letting himself in, the first thing he saw was Jenny, sitting on the couch
facing the door, her face pale.
“Oh William, you’re home, thank goodness!” she rose swiftly. “You
didn’t come home at all last night! Where were you? I was worried
sick!”
“I was just out,” Will said softly. “Walking.” Breaking the contract,
just as Roher had, but in an infinitely more flagrant way. And in a
way infinitely more disloyal to the woman standing before him. He
couldn’t tell her about following her, about seeing her with Atherton
Hart. He felt terrible about it now. Dirty and sneaking and unkind.
With his thumb, he stroked the velvet box in his pocket, as if to reassure himself that it was still there. “I’m sorry if I worried you.”
“You did,” Jenny said. Her lip trembled as she said it.
He took a step closer to her. “Why would you worry about me?
We’ve both got our own plans. Just business, right?”
“Sure,” she said, uncertainly. “But we’re friends too, right?”
“I don’t know,” Will said. “Friends usually tell each other things
and trust each other. You don’t seem to trust me at all.”
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Hurt softened Jenny’s features. “I trust you, William. But you have
to trust me. I promise you, I have it under control.”
“Sure you do,” Will said. “You always have everything under
control.”
Will realized that they were now very close to each other. He could
feel Jenny trembling. He could smell her skin. Without thought, he
touched her flushed cheek, cradling it in his palm. Her soft brown
curls brushed his fingertips.
“I don’t always have everything under control,” she murmured.
She leaned her cheek into his hand and closed her eyes.
Drawing her toward him, he kissed her. Her lips were warm and
soft. He kissed her and he didn’t want to stop.
But being so close to her made him dizzy, and not in a pleasant
way. The voice in his head was suddenly back, and it was ... laughing. Laughing, cackling and cruel. His heart raced and he pushed her
away, alarmed.
“Oh, shucks,” she said, stumbling back. Her face was suddenly
beet red. “I ... I guess I’m not a very good kisser. I’m sorry.”
“You’re a fine kisser,” Will said curtly, not trusting himself to look
at her, not wanting to risk the return of the laughter. “I’m just not
feeling like myself right now, Jenny.”
She cast her eyes down. “You’re tired,” she said. “I worked you too
hard. But it’s all over now.”
“Yes, Jenny,” Will said. “It’s all over now.”
Chapter Fourteen
Seven Stones Unturned
Three days until the full moon
A
nd even though it was all over, and the only thing Jenny had to do
was finish preparing the filing papers so they could be sent to the
patent office in Washington D.C., and Will could sleep as much as
he liked, catching up on the rest he so desperately craved and knew
that he so desperately needed, he found that sleep was even more a
stranger than it had been before. All the rest of that week, Will suffered from terrible dreams, each night’s horrors more terrible than the
last. He would wake gasping, the light of the waxing moon casting
terrible shadows across his sweat-tangled bedclothes.
His dreams always had blood in them.
One night he dreamed of killing a man, stabbing him in the chest
with a kitchen knife. There was a lot of blood that came out when you
stabbed a man in the chest. There was also a child in that dream, a
little girl. And for some reason he hated her. The violet-eyed little brat
was hiding from him. He kept calling to her, trying to find her, telling
her that he would kill her, but of course he would not. He needed her.
He could not live if she did not grow up someday, have little violeteyed brats of her own. But he liked making her afraid. And she knew
something. She knew something that he wanted to know, and she
wouldn’t tell him what it was.
He had many other dreams like this, but in each dream, he was
always a different person. In each dream, people looked at him with
fear in their eyes. For some reason, they never knew who he was. They
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always expected him to be someone else. Someone they trusted. And
he did not know why, in those dreams, he found it so deliciously sweet
to disappoint them, to betray them, to hurt them.
He didn’t tell Jenny about these dreams. He didn’t talk to her at
all, just went to work every morning and closed himself in his room
when he got home at night. Sometimes he heard her outside his door,
lingering as if she wanted to knock. But he did not want to talk to her.
Couldn’t talk to her. He couldn’t get the thought of kissing her out of his
mind. Or rather, he couldn’t get the thought of what he’d wanted to
do after kissing her out of his mind. Those thoughts were as bad as the
nightmares. Worse. Sometimes he thought it was better to sleep and
have nightmares than think about Jenny.
Ben still wrote to him every night, his letters short and friendly.
There were no more terrible revelations—it was as if his brother knew
that Will could not stand any more of them. And Ben was coming to
Detroit. He was coming to Detroit on December 16th, and Will was
to meet him at the Michigan Central Depot. It would all come out all
right.
Will wrapped that thought around himself. It was insufficient armor, but it was something.
Ben was coming.
It would all come out all right.
On Thursday night, he woke from the worst nightmare he’d yet
had. In it, he had been screaming a word, just one word—maledictus.
His hands were covered in the blood of a woman he loved, and a man
was putting a sword to his throat.
Will felt that he was still screaming when he woke, but as he sat
in his bed, panting and trembling, he realized that the apartment was
still and silent and he hadn’t made a sound. It was very bright outside,
the light of the almost-full moon multiplied by the harsh light of the
moonlight towers.
I’m sick. It was the only explanation. He thought about the way the
Exunge had slithered and burrowed under Selvaggi’s skin. What was
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wrong with him? Why was he hearing voices in his head? He would
ask Ben. Ben would know.
Climbing out of bed, he moved quietly across the room and into
the hall. Ben would know why he was hearing voices. Ben would
know what was wrong with him. As he walked past the door to
Jenny’s bedroom, he saw that it was half-open.
He slowly pushed it open, careful not to make a sound.
She was very beautiful when she slept.
Beautiful and helpless and at your mercy.
He cradled his head. The voice again, the goddamn voice. He
forced himself to look away and in doing so, saw something else.
Jenny’s calfskin grip. Seizing it, he fled from the room, as if in a fever.
He carried the grip to the breakfast nook and sat down. It was
secured with a small lock, but he didn’t care about that. Using the
sharp point of a kitchen knife, he jimmied it open, ruining it.
He pulled out the papers and spread them out on the table. There
were sheaves and sheaves of notes on his patent; drafts of the filing,
marked up with comments and corrections in a fine lawyerly script.
Will frowned ... it had to be Atherton Hart’s writing. At least there
was nothing incriminating there, no little love-notes, no hearts or
flowers or rhyming couplets. Even so, it didn’t make Will feel much
better.
Setting these aside, he got down to some more interesting documents. Investment records. When Jenny had said she had deposited
the gold certificates, he’d thought she’d meant in a bank. But instead,
the receipts were from Hart Financial, and they indicated that all of
the money had been invested in a bewildering tangle of short-term
options on the Detroit Stock Exchange. Will had no idea what any
of it meant, but most of the investment orders were accompanied
by more notes, this time in Jenny’s fine strong hand—intricate calculations and equations, with notations about hedge parameters,
velocity and put-call parities. Will remembered how Jenny corrected
the equation on the board when they’d come to Detroit. Her little
hand sliding across the slate, rubbing out the chalk. Will was good
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at mathematics, but these equations defied his understanding; he set
these aside as well.
He recognized the paper that sat on top of the next bundle. It
was the telegram the landlady had given him, removed from its envelope and folded smooth.
Received your message. Hart has been informed of your arrival. Waste no
time. Hetty.
The letters bundled with this telegram were from a Brooklyn address, scribbled on cheap pieces of scrap paper. They were all signed
Hetty Green.
Will sat back in his seat, stunned. Even he knew who Hetty Green
was. She was the richest woman in America, a cut-throat financier
in New York City and a famous miser. Will scanned the letters. They
were all notes of friendly encouragement from an old, wise woman
to a young, ambitious one. He didn’t have Jenny’s letters, but he
could tell from Mrs. Green’s replies that she must have written about
investing. One sentence caught Will’s eye:
If you are looking to parlay a hundred thousand dollars into a million in
the space of a few weeks, I am afraid I cannot offer you any words of advice. I
have always been content with six-percent interest, steady over time. That is all a
Christian woman should expect.
Will stared at the paper. A million dollars? What could Jenny be
trying to do that required a million dollars? Briar’s words came back
to him.
Money makes people do terrible things.
He sorted through the papers more quickly now, anxiety rising.
He was looking particularly for anything about the Consortium that
Jenny had spoken of, the organization that she had used to scare Dr.
Smyth. But there was nothing in any of the papers, nothing at all.
What he did find, at the very bottom of the pile, was their marriage license. And with it, the envelope that he had glimpsed in
her purse when they were in San Francisco. It had the logo of the
Hansen Timber Company in the top left hand corner. He unfolded
it and read the contents:
250
Dear Mr. Sawtelle:
I am pleased to inform you that my daughter, Jennifer Elaine
Hansen, has married Mr. William Edwards. I have known Mrs. Emily
Edwards since childhood, and I consider her my oldest and dearest
friend. I am overjoyed that my daughter has chosen to marry her
youngest son, and I wish to give the newlyweds every comfort and
luxury as they begin their new life together. To this end, I direct you
to immediately disburse to her $100,000, the entire balance of the
emergency fund of cash you hold on my account.
My apologies for not being able to arrange this with you personally,
but matters of immediate concern require my presence away from
San Francisco over the Thanksgiving holiday.
I remain respectfully yours,
Mr. Dagmar Hansen
President, Hansen Timber Company
Will stared at the signature on the letter. It was a reasonable
facsimile of Mr. Hansen’s signature. But he knew it had to be just that.
A facsimile.
A fake.
That’s why Jenny had been so panicked in San Francisco.
She hadn’t gotten the money from an inheritance or a trust. She’d
stolen it. She’d embezzled it from her father. The marriage license had
been a pretense, but not of the kind she’d said.
“What are you doing?” Jenny’s voice came from behind him. She
was dressed in a long white nightgown, trimmed with soft lace. Her
hair streamed around her shoulders. She stared at him.
He did not speak, only held up the letter. It took her a moment to
realize what he was holding, but then she saw the calfskin grip at Will’s
feet. First she reddened, then she went deadly pale. Flying across the
room, she snatched it out of his hand furiously.
“How dare you go through my papers!”
“How dare you mix me up in this swindle!” Will jumped to his feet,
fury flaring in response.
251
“You were happy enough to be mixed up in it when it meant you
could get to Detroit!” Jenny snapped. “And it’s not a swindle. I do have
an inheritance waiting for me, and that $100,000 is only a patch on it.
But not even the crookedest lawyer on earth could have gotten that for
us—it’s sewn up tighter than a drum. So I had to ... borrow it another
way.”
“Borrow it! Jenny, you stole it!”
“I borrowed it!” Jenny stomped her foot. “I am going to pay him
back every penny, with handsome interest!”
“Is that what all this is?” Will gestured to the financial papers on
the table. “All of these investments?”
“I am going to make a million dollars,” Jenny hissed. “I have to,
and this is the only way I can do it.”
“For what, Jenny?” Will advanced on her, cold rage rising in him.
The voice was screaming, just as it had in his dream, joyous and cruel.
“What is the Consortium? Goddamn it, tell me!”
“I can’t!” Jenny cried. “William, I can’t! If I do—”
“Tell me!” He yelled, seizing her by the arms and shaking her.
Jenny wrenched away from him.
“Don’t you touch me, William Edwards!” She staggered across the
room. Falling against the bookshelf, she seized a heavy bookend and
pressed herself back into a corner, brandishing it.
“What about Atherton Hart, Jenny?” Will spoke in a low voice as
he crossed the room toward her. “I know about you sneaking off to see
him every day.”
Jenny looked at him, her knuckles white around the bookend.
“What are you talking about?”
“I followed you,” Will said softly. She was afraid of him, he saw.
Why did that give him so much pleasure? “I saw things.”
“You didn’t see anything because there wasn’t anything to see!”
she screeched. “He’s my financial agent. Recommended to me— “
“By Hetty Green,” Will completed the sentence. “An old miser
you’ve been writing schoolgirl mash notes to. Even she thinks you’re
a fool trying to make a million dollars out of a hundred thousand.
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And for what, Jenny?” He was close to her now, towering over her.
“What is the Consortium?”
“Stop asking me that,” she said, voice trembling. “You have no
right.”
“I have every right,” Will sneered, seizing the bookend out of
her hand and throwing it to the ground. It landed with a heavy thud,
denting the beautifully polished hardwood floor. “I’m your husband,
remember?”
“You’re a stupid bumpkin I used to get what I wanted!” Jenny
darted past him, quick as a fish. She ran across the living room and
down the hall, seizing the knob of her bedroom door. “You’re not even
a business partner! You’re a sneaking, two-faced son-of-a-bitch! I got
you what you wanted. I paid your way here. Now leave me alone!”
She slammed her bedroom door and Will heard it lock. Behind the
door, he could hear her sink to the floor, sobbing. He went to the door
and laid his forehead against it. He felt spent and remorseful.
“Jenny,” he began.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed, through the wood.
“Jenny, I’m sorry. I’m ... I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Jenny’s voice trembled. “I can take care
of myself.”
Will stood there listening to her cry for a long time. Then he went
back and gathered up her papers and put them back into the calfskin
grip. As he did, a tiny slip of paper fluttered to the floor. Picking it up,
Will saw that it was the paper from the fortune cookie that she’d gotten
at the chop suey restaurant.
Loss is the crucible of the spirit.
Tucking it inside with the other papers, Will closed the grip and
left it outside Jenny’s bedroom door.
Chapter Fifteen
Nikola Tesla
full moon
Dear Will:
I will arrive in Detroit at 6:15 p.m. on December 16. Please meet me
at the Michigan Central Depot, under the clock tower, without fail.
It’ll all come out all right.
Ben
W
hen Will woke the next morning, Jenny was gone, the calfskin grip
gone with her.
Gone, gone, gone. The voice—now familiar and pervasive,
hardly separable from his own thoughts anymore—echoed bitterly.
A nd you let her get away.
“Mr. Tesla has taken a sudden interest in you,” said Grig, as they
were walking to work. He spoke with stiff formality, as if Will was
a stranger, but there was concern in his eyes. Will didn’t know why
Grig was concerned about him, except perhaps it was that he hadn’t
shaved, even though he did have the straight razor in his pocket.
He had started to shave that morning, but then he had been more
fascinated by the gleam of the metal. It was a beautiful blade. Jenny
had bought it for him.
254
Where did she go? She probably went to meet that handsome
man.
“No she didn’t,” Will muttered to the voice. “She said it was just
business.”
That’s what she said about you, too, the voice said. And then
she kissed you. She was lying to you, Mooncalf. Don’t you know
that?
No, I kissed her,” Will said, confused. Then he realized that Grig was
looking at him and the voice in his head laughed, and Will was silent.
Grig did not speak again until they were in Building Three, and
Will had slumped into his chair, staring down at the papers on his
desk. “Mr. Tesla is now very interested in having you reconstruct your
Otherwhere Flume for his review. What did you say it would take you,
two weeks?”
What do you think they are doing right now? Can’t you just
imagine? What kinds of sounds is she making?
“I don’t need two weeks,” Will said dully. He felt for the straight
razor in his pocket, as if to reassure himself that it was still there.
If Tesla wanted the Flume, he’d build it for him. To hell with Jenny.
To hell with that deceitful, sneaking, lying ...
Jumping to his feet, Will began gathering parts from the storage
bins around Building Three. Throwing these together on a table he
began working furiously. The ferocity of his efforts didn’t silence the
voice—nothing did—but at least it gave him something to think about
other than what it was saying.
Can’t you just imagine, Mooncalf? The two of them naked,
his hand moving up her thigh—
“Shut up!” Will shrieked at the voice. The other apprentices looked
up at Will’s outburst. But it was Court who finally came over.
“Hey, Will,” he said softly. “Are you all right?”
“It’s all your fault,” Will growled at Court, low this time. “You did
this. You made me sick, with all your stories about witches and cabals.
Why did you tell me about those things? Terrible things that can’t be
undone!”
Nikola Tesla
255
Then he turned furiously back to his work. He felt, rather than
saw, Court back away. He felt, rather than saw, Court cross the floor
of Building Three to go talk to Grig.
“Will,” Grig’s voice interrupted Will’s work a few minutes later.
“Court says you’re sick. Perhaps you should rest a bit.”
Taking a deep breath, Will lifted his head. He made his face smooth
and pleasant. When he spoke, it was in a completely normal voice.
“Gee, Grig, I don’t know what Court means by that,” he smiled.
“I don’t feel sick at all.” He gestured to the work in front of him. “And
look, I’m making swell progress.”
Grig looked down at the work spread on the table before Will. His
brow knit with uncertainty. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m just swell, Grig,” Will beamed. “It’ll all come out all right.”
By late afternoon, Will had completed the new Otherwhere Flume.
It was a day of unbroken and intense effort, his fingers flying with
greater dexterity than he’d ever imagined them capable of, their accuracy and swiftness seeming almost unnatural. When he was done he
went to Grig’s desk and set the Flume down before him with a thump.
“Done,” he barked. Grig looked up at him slowly, then at the
Flume. It had been built to Will’s new specifications, and was far more
elegant and impressive than his cigar-box prototype.
“I will call Mr. Tesla and let him know,” said Grig, softly.
Will said nothing in reply, just turned on his heel and returned
to his desk. He threw himself down on his chair. But something was
missing. Rising, he went to Roher’s empty desk. He wheeled Roher’s
chair to his desk, shoving his own chair aside. Then he said down and
started rocking back and forth.
Squeaking.
Yes. That was better.
Mr. Tesla arrived about an hour later.
When he arrived in Building Three, everyone leapt to their feet.
All the other apprentices stood stock-straight, some hastily slicking
back their hair, others straightening their ties or tucking in their shirts.
But Will just continued rocking back and forth in his chair.
256
Will and Jenny Edwards, sitting in a tree ...
Nikola Tesla was in his early fifties. He was very tall and trim. His
hair was templed with grey and he wore a small, perfectly groomed
moustache. He did not even glance at the other apprentices, but
walked straight to Will’s desk, Grig at his elbow.
“I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Edwards.” His voice was soft
and melodic, spiced with the sounds of the Black Sea. “I am glad that
you wrote to me about Mr. Roher. It is good to find an apprentice who
respects the rules. You will go far here at Tesla Industries.”
“I doubt it,” Will smiled up at him. Tesla’s eyes widened with surprise. Grig hurriedly placed Will’s newly-built Otherwhere Flume on
the desk before him.
“Here it is, Mr. Tesla,” he said.
Tesla did not reach for the device, nor did he do anything but look
at it.
“Grig says that you have somehow overcome the Connection Drop
Problem,” he said. “I am eager to understand how.”
Will pushed the Otherwhere Flume closer to him, and said, with
supreme indifference:
“Figure it out for yourself. It’s all right there.”
“Mr. Edwards!” Grig gasped, but Tesla lifted a fine-boned hand to
silence him. Then he reached into his pocket. He retrieved a pristine
white handkerchief. Unfolding it, he used it to pick up the device. He
turned it over and over, slowly. He stared at it for a long time, his eyes
luminescent.
“Yes,” he murmured finally. “Yes, I see. Of course. It makes perfect sense.”
“Does it?” Will said. “That’s good. I’m glad something does.”
Then Will stood up and walked out of the door of Building Three,
not even looking back to meet the astonished gazes that followed him.
He walked past the gatehouse toward Grand River Avenue, pulling his coat tight around him. Winter twilight was gathering cold and
purple. He put his head down against the frigid wind. He walked faster.
Nikola Tesla
257
He was supposed to meet Ben at the Michigan Central Depot.
The Michigan Central Depot was right across the street from the
Hotel Acheron. The hotel where people didn’t care if you screamed.
Will walked downtown. He needed to walk. It was the only thing
keeping him from flying into a million pieces. But when his feet
stopped, he saw that they had carried him someplace unexpected.
They had carried him, as unswerving as metal filings to a magnet,
down Griswold Street, to the tall white building in the financial district
where Atherton Hart’s offices were.
He pushed open the brass and glass door. Steam-heat enveloped
him. He got in the elevator, and let the elevator man take him all the
way to the top, to the 23rd Floor.
The offices of Hart Financial occupied the entire penthouse. The
silken carpets were brilliantly colored, the wood paneling dark and
polished to a high gloss. Will approached the massive reception desk,
behind which sat a neatly dressed receptionist. She looked up with a
pleasant smile as he approached, but when she saw his face, her smile
vanished abruptly.
“Hello,” Will said to her. “I’m looking for my wife.”
The receptionist blinked at him. “Excuse me,” she said. “I’m sorry,
but who are you looking for?”
“My wife,” Will repeated. “Her name is Mrs. William Edwards.”
“I ... I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “But I don’t know anyone by that
name.”
“Her name is Jenny,” Will thundered, pounding the reception desk
with his fist. The girl jumped, her face going ashen.
“You mean Miss Hansen?” she squeaked. “I’m sorry, but she’s not
here!”
“I don’t believe you,” Will snarled, striding past her to open the
door to the offices beyond. The girl was on her feet in a moment,
wringing her hands.
“Oh no, please! You can’t go in there, I’m sorry—”
But Will had already stormed into the private office of Atherton Hart.
258
As Will entered, Atherton Hart rose from behind his huge mahogany desk. Seeing him up close, Will hated him even more, hated
his neatly slicked hair, his black mirror polished shoes, his dark hornrimmed glasses that only seemed to make him more handsome. His
shirt was so white it made Will’s eyes hurt.
“Excuse me, who are you?” Even his voice sounded pressed and
starched.
“My name is William Edwards,” said Will, taking two slow steps
toward him. “And I’m looking for my wife. Your secretary says you call
her Miss Hansen. But her name is Mrs. Edwards. She’s my wife.”
Atherton Hart blinked and said nothing for a moment. Then he
looked past Will at the receptionist standing behind him. She must
have looked terrified, for Hart spoke very gently to her.
“It’s all right, Miss Leydeker,” he said. “Please hold my calls. I will
speak with Mr. Edwards.”
Will heard the door being closed behind him. Then he was alone
with Hart. He felt in his pocket. The straight razor was still there.
“Your wife is a client of mine, Mr. Edwards,” Hart said. “But I’m
afraid I don’t know where she is.”
“I think you do,” Will took another step forward. “You and she
have been going around together. Sneaking around.”
“We have hardly been sneaking!” Hart lifted an eyebrow, smiled
slightly. “I have taken your wife to lunch once or twice. But it’s only
business.”
“Only business,” Will whispered. “That’s what she said to me.
Only business.”
“Mr. Edwards, are you all right?”
“No!” Will barked. “I’m not all right. I don’t know where my wife
is. It’s not only business. I’m not all right.”
Then, turning, Will slammed the door behind himself hard enough
to make the wall rattle.
Will stalked up Grand River Avenue, arms clenched around himself, muttering low. It had grown much colder, and the streets glistened
Nikola Tesla
259
with moonlight, pallid and deceiving. Maybe she was home. Maybe
she’d gone home. Maybe that’s where she was.
He didn’t even notice Harley Briar was beside him, matching his
hurried stride, calling his name, until Briar grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
“Will! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
“Why are you looking for me?” Will snarled. “Are you one of
them? Are you one of the Consortium, or the cabal? Were you the
one who turned the Earth against us? It’s trying to kill us all.”
Deep concern passed over Briar’s face. “What are you talking
about? You’re not making any sense.”
“There’s Exunge inside my head,” Will whispered. “Big fat worms
of it.”
“Then you need help.” Briar spoke carefully, using the same infuriatingly reasonable tone he’d used with Selvaggi at the Mayflower
factory. He tried to take Will’s arm. “Come on. I’ll take you to Dr.
Gore’s.”
“No!” Will shrieked, shaking off his hand. “They’re sangrimancers! Who ever heard of sangrimancer doctors?”
“It’s going to be all right, Will,” Briar said. Instead of trying to take
Will’s arm again, he just rested a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Just
come with me, OK?”
“I have to go home,” Will stared down. The pavement beneath his
feet wheeled and spun. He felt dizzy. The moonlight was too bright,
too bright. It hurt his eyes. He covered them with a shaking hand.
“You can’t go home like this,” Briar murmured. “You’ll scare your
wife. You’ll scare Jenny—”
“Don’t talk to me about Jenny!” Will roared, shoving Briar square
in the chest. “Do you think you can just talk about her? However you
like?”
“No! I never said—”
“Do you want her, just like Atherton Hart does? Do you want to take
her away from me?” Will kept shoving Briar, and Briar staggered back.
260
“Will, stop it!” Briar finally shouted, in a commanding voice. It
was so loud that it made Will cringe. He lifted his hands to his head,
pressing the heels against his temples.
“My head has been screaming,” Will said.
Briar took that opportunity, when Will’s hands were pressed to his
head and his eyes covered, to launch himself at him. He tried to pin
Will’s arms to his sides just as he had with the screaming man. But
something wild and bitter rose in Will, gave him strength and quickness he never knew he had. Lashing out at Briar, he struck him in the
face once, twice. Briar went down like a stone, and Will fell on top of
him, beating him.
When Briar was finally still, Will stood slowly. He looked at the
blood on his knuckles, Briar’s blood mixed with his own. He lifted it to
his tongue, tasted its salty richness.
Let’s go home, Mooncalf, the voice said.
Chapter Sixteen
The End of the Beginning
Full Moon
W
hen he came inside the apartment he knew that Jenny was there
before he even saw her. He could smell her.
She sat on the couch facing the door, waiting for him. She was
wearing her dark soft fur coat and all of her things were packed and
ready for travel. He stood looking at her for a long moment. She blinked when she saw blood on his shirt, but said nothing.
“Where have you been?” he said finally. “And where are you
going?”
“I took the overnight train to Washington. I filed the papers for
your patent.” She paused. “And ... and I’m not going to tell you
where I’m going. Remember?”
“I gave Tesla the Flume, Jenny,” Will said.
“What?” Jenny whispered.
“Gave it him personally!” he sneered the words with savage glee.
“Built a new prototype in one day. One day! It’s his now. I gave it to
him.”
“But ... but all that work—”
“I. Don’t. Care.” Will said, advancing on her. “I’d rather give it
to the richest man in the country than see you get one dime of it, you
greedy whore. If it’s money you want, go fuck Atherton Hart. I’m sure
it won’t be the first time.”
Jenny stared at him for a long moment, fury draining her face of
all color.
262
“You ... bastard!” Jenny launched herself at him in a storm of fists.
But she was small, and she didn’t have the power to hurt him. Her
soft, warm violence was little more than a pleasurable provocation.
The smell of her brown curls, the tangy pungent perfume of her rage
fired him. He seized her, pulled her close. Pushing the fur from her
shoulder, he buried his face in the bare place where her shoulder met
her neck. He pressed his mouth to her skin, tasting its rich sweetness.
Jenny screeched, and her fingernails found the side of his face.
Burning pain seared through him. And in that intense moment of
pain, came clarity. He saw Jenny through unclouded eyes—her brown
curls falling out of their pins, her blue eyes full of hurt and rage.
What was wrong with him?
He staggered back. The clarity brought something else to his mind.
Ben.
He was supposed to meet Ben.
He was supposed to meet Ben but now it was too late and Ben
would be gone.
“Oh God, Jenny,” he said. “Oh God.”
Fleeing from the apartment, he staggered out into the street. It had
begun to snow, heavily, and everything was blindingly white, illuminated by the full white moon that appeared and disappeared behind
scudding clouds. He looked up at it, and it filled his vision, and he
could not take his eyes off its screaming, insane brightness.
PART II: WANING
Chapter Seventeen
The Beginning of the End
Ten days until the new moon
W
hen Will opened his eyes again, he felt horribly sick.
Hunger and thirst were the first things he noticed; then,
crashing in behind them, pain. His whole body ached, bruised and
scratched, as if he’d just been thrown down a hill of brambles.
He ... was inside. Inside a room. He blinked away confusion. The
room was familiar. There was peeling wallpaper that looked like demon faces, and a grimy orange bulb and a window that looked only
onto a brick wall. He thought about it, and realized that it was the
hotel he’d stayed in with Jenny when they’d first come to Detroit.
The Hotel Acheron.
He was sitting ... no, not sitting, crouching ... by the door. He stood,
unsteady on his feet, stiff muscles screaming. There was a chair nearby,
and he had to hold onto the back of it to keep from falling over. Then
he noticed that there was something in his hand. Lifting it, he looked
at it. It was his straight razor.
There was a small whimper from the corner. Will looked in the
direction of the sound.
It was Jenny.
He narrowed his eyes, nausea rising afresh. Jenny was huddled
in a ball, knees drawn up to her chest. She was wearing her fur coat,
clutching it tightly around her throat. She was just looking at him.
Staring at him, her eyes wide and glowing with fear.
266
“Jenny,” he began, his voice cracking. Speaking to her made the
fear in her eyes grow even more intense. He saw that she was looking
at the razor in his hand. He looked at it again. Why was it open? Why
was he holding on to it at all? He closed it and slid it into his pocket.
Then he steadied himself against the chair again, feeling disoriented
and miserable. “Hey, Scuff. What are we doing here?”
He saw Jenny’s face soften slightly. But she did not relax.
“William?” she whispered. “William, is it you?”
“Sure it’s me,” he said, irritably. “Who else would it be?” He sat
heavily in the chair. The act of sitting made him realize how completely exhausted he was. He felt like he could sleep for a month.
“Jenny, something’s gone wrong with me,” he said. “I don’t feel
well. I think I’ve been sick.”
“Yes, William.” Her voice trembled. “You’ve been sick.”
“I remember ... I went to look for Ben,” Will said. “I needed to
find Ben.”
“You didn’t find him,” Jenny said.
“Why are we here?” Will said. “Why did we come back here? It’s
not clean.”
The kind of place where people don’t care if you scream ...
“I followed you. I was worried about you. You said we should come
here.” She paused. “You locked the door.”
“Why would I do that?” Then he said, “I’m so hungry, Jenny.”
“So am I,” she said. “We haven’t eaten for five days. I drank water
out of the tap.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Will said.
“You locked the door,” Jenny said again, in a queer tremulous
monotone. “But it wasn’t you, William. It wasn’t you. You were sick.”
Will didn’t answer. He went to the basin in the corner of the room
and turned the spigot. He gulped the cold water greedily, then put his
head under the stream.
“You haven’t eaten either?” he asked. The cold water on his head
wasn’t helping him think any more clearly. “Why didn’t you go get
food?”
267
“You locked the door,” Jenny said again. “You have the key in your
pocket.”
“Why didn’t you just fish it out?” Will reached into his pocket, and
his fingers found the key with the bakelite fob on it. As he crossed the
room to give it to her, he saw that one side of her face was swollen and
purple-yellow.
“Jenny,” he whispered. “You’re hurt.”
And then he saw that the bruises weren’t her only injuries. Her
arms were covered with dozens of shallow cuts. Razor cuts. His
breathing quickened, and he reached for her, and she screamed. Her
eyes went blank with panic and she scrambled away from him. As she
did, the fur coat she’d been holding closed around herself fell open.
She was stark naked beneath it. And her body was covered with ...
signs. Sigils, magical charms, drawn in blood.
Will staggered back from her, heart racing. He steadied himself
against the wall farthest from her. Jenny had pressed herself into a
corner with her back to him. She had curled her body into a tight ball,
head covered by her arms. Will stared at her back, rising and falling
with quick shallow breaths, for a long time.
“Jenny,” he said softly. “What happened?”
“You were sick,” Jenny said, her voice muffled and dull, and he
realized that she was just saying the same things, over and over. “You
were sick. But you’re better now, William. It’s going to be all right.”
Will didn’t move. He suddenly remembered the key in his hand.
He threw it to her. It skittered on the floor, coming to rest beside her
leg. She made no move to take it for a long time. Finally, she uncurled
slightly, looking down to see if it was really there. When she saw that
it was, she snaked out a hand and snatched it, clasping it close to her
chest, curling over it as if it were a small animal in need of protection.
“Are you all right, Jenny?”
Her shoulders twitched—with bitter laughter or a desperate sob,
he didn’t know which. In one swift movement she jumped to her feet
and ran to the door. As she slid past him, it aroused a tingling echo
in his memory; something dark and cruelly sweet, whispering to him
268
in the back of his mind, the light of the full moon illuminating falling
snow ...
Will braced himself against the wall against a sudden rush of dizziness. He was sure he was going to vomit or pass out, but he did not,
he just stood there, holding himself up.
Jenny paused by the door, watching him fearfully. She was clutching the key so hard her knuckles were white. It was as if she was waiting for him. Waiting for him to do something.
“Should I go with you?” His voice sounded plaintive even to his
own ears; he was so confused and he didn’t want to be in this place. He
knew it was a bad place. Bad things had happened here and he did not
want to stay here with them.
“No.” Jenny said softly. “No, William. You have to rest. You have
to stay here and rest. I will go and get food. I’ll get lots of food. I’ll get
lots of food and come back.”
“All right, Jenny,” he whispered. “You go.”
It was as if she had required his permission to actually move. Even
then, her hand touched the doorknob hesitantly. She brought the key
to the lock, but did not put it in. He could see that she was turning a
question over in her mind, some deep uncertainty playing itself out on
her face. Then, instead of putting the key in the door, she seized the
doorknob. She turned it with a jerking movement. The door opened,
creaking.
Jenny’s face drained of color, and he almost thought she would
collapse.
“You never really locked it.” Her voice was a strangled whisper. “It
was never locked.”
And then she was gone, slamming the door behind her. He heard
her footsteps moving swiftly down the hall, then breaking into a panicked run.
Will barely made it to the bed. There was blood on the sheets, he
saw. There was a lot of blood on the sheets. But there was nothing
he could do about that. He fell onto the bed. And despite his hunger,
despite everything, his body crumbled into sleep.
269
Will was woken by rough hands pulling off the thin blanket that
covered him. A destroyed face, half of it swallowed by swollen slimy
black flesh, thrust itself close to his.
“Rent’s due.” The night-man said, feeling through Will’s pockets,
turning all of them inside out. Finding the straight razor, he withdrew it—but when he saw the blood crusted on the blade, he shoved
it quickly back into Will’s pocket. He straightened, the heavy brace on
his leg making him stand at a queer angle. “You got the money?”
“I don’t think so,” Will said, softly.
“That girl you had up here ... she threw money at me when you
two came in here, so I didn’t bother you about it. But it’s been more
than a week now, and what she gave me don’t cover it.” He paused.
“What happened to that girl, anyway?” His tone was both harsh and
insinuating. “The two of you were making a hell of a racket.”
“What happened?” Will staggered to his feet, seizing the man by
his worn lapels. “What did you hear?”
But the night-man was quick, and much stronger than he looked.
Breaking Will’s grip, he threw him to the floor.
“People do what they like at the Hotel Acheron,” the man sneered
down at him. “I don’t make it a point of listening too close.”
Then, seizing Will by the back of his coat, the night-man lifted
him and threw him out the door. Will tumbled, and the man followed,
grabbing him again, throwing him down the stairs this time.
Will landed in an aching heap.
One last lift, and the night-man threw Will down the cement front
stairs and into the street. Will rolled against the cold pavement, landing on his back, looking up at the waning moon. It was a bright cold
night, snow swirling.
“Merry Christmas, you bum!” the night-man yelled, kicking the
door shut behind him.
Will did not move for a while, the chill of melting snow seeping up
through his coat. He squinted against the brightness.
It couldn’t be Christmas already, he thought. That would mean eight
days had gone.
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Why hadn’t Jenny come back for him?
Rolling onto his knees, he climbed to his feet slowly and unsteadily.
The cold seemed to reach all the way down into his gut. He wrapped
his arms around himself and walked. Probably Jenny was back at the
apartment.
He stumbled through the cold streets, feet slipping on ice. He
didn’t even have the nickel in his pocket he needed to get on a streetcar. He was starving, weak as a newborn lamb. All the restaurants
along Woodward Avenue were closed, but he could smell festive dinners being laid on tables in faroff homes, and just the smell made him
feel weaker.
He could not walk, he kept stumbling and falling. Finally, he didn’t
want to try anymore. The next time he fell, instead of trying to get up
he just sat there, head down over his knees.
He had been sitting like this for a while when a concerned voice
broke into his thoughts. “Is something the matter, son?”
A kindly-looking old man with a luxurious white beard looked
down at him. He wore a warm overcoat and his arms were full of
presents wrapped in gold and silver paper. And for no reason that he
could understand, Will burst into tears. Helpless, childish tears.
“My goodness, that’s no way to spend Christmas Eve!” the man
clucked his tongue. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m trying to get home,” Will sniffed, wiping his nose on the back
of his sleeve, “And I don’t have any money.”
The man quickly dug in his pocket and retrieved a handful of
small change. He pressed the coins into Will’s hand; they were still
warm from his body.
“You go on home, I’m sure people are waiting for you,” the old
man put down his packages and helped Will to his feet. “It’ll all come
out all right. You’ll see.”
“Ben?” Will whispered. But the old man had picked up his presents and was walking away.
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Will got off at the streetcar stop nearest Winslow and walked to
the apartment building. Seeing lights blazing from the sitting room in
the front, he snuck quietly along the side alley and up the back stairs.
When he got to the apartment, he saw that the door was standing half
open. He stumbled through it.
“Jenny?” he called, softly.
But Jenny did not answer. And when he saw the apartment, he
prayed she wasn’t there.
The apartment had not just been ransacked, it had been destroyed.
Furniture was broken and the pieces scattered. The suitcases Jenny
had packed had been slashed open, their contents strewn carelessly.
Cold air streamed in through broken windows.
Will moved through the wreckage carefully, glass and shattered
wood crunching under his feet as he moved. Weariness and hunger
vanished; his whole body was suddenly awake and alert and anxious.
There were three men waiting for him in his bedroom. Three
men—and a woman. But it wasn’t Jenny. It was Mrs. Kosanovic, the
landlady—probably drawn upstairs by the sounds of destruction. She
lay on the floor, hog-tied and gagged and blindfolded. Will’s heart
thudded.
The men reminded Will of the men who had come to take Roher.
But these men wore black suits, and instead of a badge, each man had
a red orchid in his lapel.
One of the men—diminutive, with large dark eyes and a trim
moustache—had Jenny’s calfskin grip at his feet. He was reading her
papers.
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Edwards,” this man said, without looking
up.
“Who are you?” Will said, taking a step toward him. “What are
you doing—”
Quick as thinking, the other two men, who had been standing at
the first man’s flank, rushed forward and seized Will, pushing him back
against the wall. One of them got a thick arm against Will’s throat and
held him there.
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“Get him a chair,” the first man said. “If there are any left.”
A chair was fetched, and Will was put into it, each of the two men
standing beside and behind him, resting a heavy hand on his shoulder,
holding him down.
The man who had spoken laid the papers aside. He rose, and came
to stand before Will.
“My name is Bernays,” he said. “And my boss is not happy with
you at all.”
Will stared at him, waiting for him to explain, but Bernays seemed
in no hurry. Rather, he looked down at Will contemplatively.
“You’re so young,” he observed. “Your body should not be able to
withstand that much magic, not without an allergic reaction severe
enough to kill you immediately. You should be dead. Why aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Will said again. “I didn’t
... do any magic.” But then he remembered the charms he’d seen on
Jenny’s body, the charms sketched in blood, and his head spun. “I
don’t think I did.”
“We know you did magic,” Bernays snorted. “That is not in dispute. It is our job to know when huge amounts of magic are released.
And it is our job to track down the warlocks who release them.”
Will blinked, remembering what Court had told him.
“The Settlement,” he said. “Killing Old Users. The Agency. You’re
... you’re from the Agency.”
“Very good, Mr. Edwards,” Bernays’ eyes flared. “You’ve been doing your reading. But you might want to choose your material with
more care. The Goês’ Confession is a piece of seditious trash, and we
work very hard to keep such falsehoods from propagating.”
He took a step toward Will.
“The information in that book is neither accurate nor fair. We are
a kinder, gentler Agency now. Now, we offer the warlocks who have
had the misfortune to come to the attention of our boss a choice.”
He made a strange ornate gesture, the flourish of a stage magician
producing a dove from a silk hat. But instead of a dove or a silk hat,
Bernays suddenly held a small phial—and a silver knife.
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“You will see that there are two objects in my hands, Mr. Edwards,”
he said. “In my left hand—well, I hardly need tell you what this is.” He
turned over the sharp silver blade, and it gleamed in the low light. “In
my right hand ... that requires only slightly more explanation. Do you
know what’s in this phial?”
Will shook his head.
“This is the Panchrest,” Bernays said. “Drink it now, and you will
no longer be able to channel magic. And you will no longer be of any
interest to us.”
“But I’ve already had the Panchrest,” Will hissed. “I had it when
I was a child.”
Bernays looked at him with astonishment.
“What an incredibly stupid thing to say,” he grinned. “And here I’d
heard you were supposed to be a genius or something. Haven’t you the
slightest capacity for self-preservation? In any case, I know that you
have not had the Panchrest. My boss has it on absolute authority that
you have not.”
“Who is this boss you keep talking about?” Will snapped. “And
how the hell would he know?”
“Oh for pete’s sake, will you just choose?” The man holding him
down hit him hard across the face. Will felt blood blossom from his
nose, trickling warm down his chin.
“Stop it, Trotter,” Bernays spoke with annoyance. “You know that
never works. Mr. Edwards has decided to be stubborn. As we were told
he might be.”
He went over to where Mrs. Kosanovic lay on the floor and lifted
her to her feet. The old woman’s eyes snapped with fierceness and fear.
“In the bad old days, Mr. Edwards, in the early days of our nation’s
history, when a warlock was accused of the crime of practicing magic,
he was also required to make a choice. He was required to choose
his plea—guilty or innocent. It wasn’t much of a choice, for pleading
guilty meant death and pleading innocence meant a slower and more
painful death. So some tried to get out of the choice all together, and
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they refused to plead anything at all. Do you know what happened to
the warlocks who refused to choose?”
Bernays did not handle Mrs. Kosanovic violently at all. Instead,
he just put his lips next to her ear and began to whisper. The whispered words, Will could hear, were in Latin. Mrs. Kosanovic began
to tremble. Then she began to ... collapse. It was as if she were being
sucked inward upon herself. Her flesh compressed as if she were being
crushed by a hundred heavy stones.
“Stop it!” screamed Will, blank with terror. “Please!”
But Bernays just kept whispering, and Mrs. Kosanovic began making horrible squeaking sounds through her gag. The sound of bones
fracturing into a million tiny pieces was like the pop and sputter of dry,
burning wood. Blood welled from her skin in fat droplets like water
being wrung from a sponge. She became smaller and smaller, crushed
by the weight of Bernay’s words.
After a long, long time, Bernays stopped whispering. Mrs.
Kosanovic was no longer there. All that was left of her was a dense
lump of meat in a pile of bloody clothing.
Will must have passed out, because the next thing he knew, Trotter
was slapping him hard across the face to wake him.
“You are going to choose,” Bernays promised him. “We can’t
choose for you. It’s against the rules. But to make you choose—well,
we can do anything we like to you.” He felt in his pocket and pulled
out the little purple velvet box that Will had left on his bedside table.
Bernays opened the box, looked at the silver dollar within, turning it
to glint in the waning moonlight. “Or to your lovely wife, when she
comes home.”
The bedroom door crashed open.
All of the warlocks turned, and Will saw Harley Briar standing in
the doorway. His face was yellow and purple with days-old bruises,
and his nose—badly broken—was still swollen to twice its size.
“Let him go!”
He had something raised in his hand—a two chambered pendant, filled with a dark liquid. The same kind that Irene wore.
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A sangrimancer’s alembic. Briar muttered a command that made it
glow faintly, warm and red.
Bernays did not smile, but rather regarded Briar with a low dark
gaze. “Oh wonderful. A hobo sangrimancer.”
“Who are you?” Briar barked.
“I think you know who we are,” Bernays said. “I’m sure you’ve
heard of us.” He touched the red orchid on his lapel.
Seeing it for the first time, Briar paled, his battered face going
corpse-white beneath the bruises. The alembic in his hand trembled.
“I’m used to long odds,” Briar said. And then he barked a command in some kind of strange language. Jenny’s papers exploded in a
blinding cloud of ash-fine dust, filling the room with a blinding, choking cloud.
Briar was at Will’s side in an instant, grabbing his arm, pulling him
toward the door.
But Bernays simply muttered something in Latin, and a cold fresh
wind blew through the room, dispelling the cloud. And then, with the
precision of three who’d always worked as one, the assassins attacked
Briar in perfect unison, lifting their hands to sketch the same charms;
chanting the same flawlessly-matched Latin. Briar held the alembic
high, screaming his bitter acrid spell words, both defending and attacking, summoning tendrils of light from the floor that lashed wildly
at them. One of these searing whips caught Bernays across the throat,
slashing it open. It staggered the trio for a moment, but only a brief
one; Bernays choked an imprecation, placed his hand on the gushing
wound and closed it with one curt command: “Sanare.”
Then, with a snarl, Bernays and his men intensified their efforts,
their voices rising to unearthly volume. The same whips of magical
light that had been lashing out at them now turned, wrapped themselves around Briar, held him fast. He struggled desperately as he
dropped to his knees.
Will fumbled in his pocket for the razor. He knew that he could
help Briar. Save him. The voice didn’t come back to his head, but
whatever had been speaking to him then was how he knew it now.
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Not quite sure what he was doing, Will used the razor to gash
his arm. He rubbed the blood between his hands, and strange power
tingled on his fingertips. Then he reached down into himself, to a
place dangerous and only vaguely remembered. The memory of the
charms on Jenny’s body filled his vision. Lifting his hands, he spoke
unfamiliar words, words that tumbled out of him, words that he knew
had never really existed until the very moment he spoke them.
He saw the look of shock in Bernays’ eyes as the warlock assassins
were wreathed in cold blue flame. They all screamed—in perfect unison—and vanished, leaving behind nothing but the smell of sulphur
and silence. Dead silence.
Will collapsed against the wall. He felt exhausted and unclean.
Looking at the place where Bernays had been standing, he saw that
the warlock had dropped something. The purple velvet box. With an
angry cry, Will bent to snatch it from the floor.
Then he went to where Harley Briar lay, writhing and moaning in
agony.
He had used so much magic. And beneath his skin, black rivers of
Exunge were beginning to blossom and swell.
Chapter Eighteen
The Tender Sangrimancers
Seven days until the new moon
W
ill didn’t know how he was able to get Briar to the Gores; he hadn’t
eaten in five days, and hadn’t an ounce of strength left—but somehow, he did it. And when they arrived at Dr. Gore’s front door, Will
didn’t bother knocking; he just threw it open and dragged Briar inside.
Briar had stopped screaming somewhere along Gratiot Street, and
now just hung limply off Will’s shoulder, his feet dragging. As they
collapsed together onto the tiled floor of the entryway, Irene fell to the
floor beside them.
“Harley!” She exclaimed with anguish, bending over him. Her
fingers traveled swiftly over his face, over the insane pattern of black
writhing beneath his bruised skin. “He knows never to use so much
magic! What happened?”
“We were attacked,” Will rasped, laying on the floor beside him,
unable to move. “By warlocks wearing red orchids.”
Irene’s eyes went wide, and she looked up at her father, who had
hurried in from the back room.
“There is no time to waste,” Dr. Gore said. “Irene, help me.”
“He’s dying,” Irene keened. “Harley—”
“If they’ve been followed, we’re all dead!” Dr. Gore bellowed, pulling a knife from his belt and kneeling at Will’s side. “Now. Quickly.”
Seizing Will’s arm, he used the knife to make another deep incision, drawing a fresh hot gush of blood, and both Irene and Dr. Gore
coated their hands in it. Irene’s had her alembic at the ready. Clasping
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hands with her father, she held the alembic high as Dr. Gore spoke
words in the bitter, pungent language that Will knew as the language
of sangrimancy—the language Briar had spoken to banish the Agency
warlocks. He suddenly realized that it was very familiar to him. It was
the language the voice in his head had always spoken in.
Her father’s words made Irene’s alembic glow, and with it she began tracing patterns in the air. She sketched swift hexes over Will’s
body, then over the doors and windowsills.
“What are you doing?” Will murmured.
“We’re sheltering you,” Dr. Gore said. “Hiding you. Quiet now.
Rest.”
They proceeded around the whole house in this fashion, Dr. Gore
chanting and Irene sketching, until finally they returned to where Will
and Briar rested. Irene looked exhausted from the effort, but she did
not stop for even a moment’s rest; she bent and lifted Briar up, carrying him into the receiving room and laying him tenderly on the table.
Dr. Gore followed her.
Will lay on the cold floor, his own blood smeared on the tiles
around him. He curled up into a ball and closed his eyes. And even
much later, when a soft knock came at the door, he could not bring
himself to open them.
The hem of Irene’s skirt brushed his cheek. She paused, and he
heard her slide open the little viewing window. After a moment in
which Will could feel her weighing her decision, she opened the door.
Will felt cold air stream in over the threshhold. He opened his eyes a
crack, just enough to see a pair of leather shoes on the doormat.
“I’m looking for Will Edwards,” the shoes said. They were scuffed,
Will noticed. Not polished. “Please let me in, I know he’s here—”
“You shall not enter here,” she replied in a calm, ceremonial voice.
“Begone, kallikantzari. This home is fortified against you.”
“I’m not one of them.” A pause. “I swear it upon my blood.”
Irene weighed the shoes’ formal response for a long time.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Will’s brother,” the shoes said. “Ben.”
Chapter Nineteen
Kala Christouyennaa
Six days until the new moon
H
unger woke him the next morning, gnawing at his gut with a ferocity even more powerful than his lingering weariness. The smell of
food suffused the house—the scent of garlic and rosemary and roasting pork heavy in the air.
He had been put into a bed in an upstairs room. Climbing out
of it, he stood for a moment on shaky legs, steadying himself. Winter
sunlight illuminated the shade covering the window. He pushed the
shade aside, looking out over the roofs and back-alleys of Greektown,
narrowing his eyes against the intense glare.
Then, slowly, he made his way downstairs. In the kitchen, Dr.
Gore, wearing a long ruffled apron, was bent before the gas oven poking at a roast. An unfamiliar man was sitting at the kitchen table. Will
stopped in the doorway, looking at him.
“Ben,” he said.
Ben was tall and slender, with walnut colored hair and green eyes.
He wore a rumpled suit—it matched his scuffed shoes—and the impression he gave was of a bank clerk in a very small bank with very
few clients.
Ben rose quickly, and came over to where Will was standing.
Without a word, he hugged Will. Will held on to him for a moment,
steadying himself against his brother.
“It’s all right,” Ben murmured. “It’ll all come out all right.”
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Will shook his head and pushed himself away from his brother’s
embrace. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he shakily crossed the
kitchen to the table, steadying himself against the back of one of the
chairs.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
“I can imagine,” Dr. Gore said. “But I’m afraid dinner is not yet
ready.” He gestured to a plate that had been put out on the table to
accompany two half-drained cups of coffee. “Have some kourambiedes.
The sugar will help you.”
The plate was piled with cookies, round and white and thickly
coated with powdered sugar. They looked like tiny full moons. Will
devoured them, one after the other, licking his fingers between bites.
Dr. Gore did not seem surprised at how quickly Will ate the cookies,
he just went to the icebox and retrieved a glass bottle of milk. He
poured a large cupful and set it before Will.
“Drink that,” he said. “Then help your brother set the table. Irene
will be home from church soon, and then we will eat. We will be glad
to have you, and you will need your strength to decide what is to be
done.”
Will drank his milk as he was told, then followed Ben into the dining room, where a colorful cloth, plates and silver were collected on a
heavy walnut sideboard. The eastern wall of the room was dominated
by a holy shrine. An olive-oil lamp flickered low before gold-leafed
icons of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, as well as a saint Will did not
recognize, a beardless young man with dark curly hair.
Silently, Ben and Will began working side by side, laying the table
for Christmas dinner.
“How did you find me?” Will finally asked. When Ben did not
answer immediately, Will instead asked what he’d wanted to in the first
place: “Why couldn’t you have found me sooner?”
“You were supposed to meet me at the train station,” Ben said.
“You never showed up. I spent days looking for you. Some people had
said they’d seen you with a man named Harley Briar, and they told me
that he often came here.” He paused. “Look at the letter.”
Kala Christouyenna
281
Will remembered Ben’s letter, still crumpled in his jacket pocket.
He took it out and smoothed it, and saw that it did bear a message,
written in a desperate hand.
Where are you, Will? Why can’t I reach you? Why didn’t you meet
me at the station?
There was more written on the letter than just that—instructions
for where he should go, pleas to come as quickly as possible, comforting reassurances—but they were all useless to him now. Exhaling, Will
carefully folded the letter and put it back in his pocket.
“I blacked out, Ben,” Will said softly. “I woke up five days later,
in a hotel. And Jenny was there. In the room with me. She thought
I’d locked the door, but I hadn’t. She had blood on her. And ... cuts.
Something happened, Ben. Something bad.”
Ben drew a deep breath, but said nothing.
“I don’t understand what happened to me,” Will said. “Do you,
Ben? Do you know?”
Ben stopped for a moment, plate in hand. He laid it down, straightened it.
“I think I do,” he said softly. He looked at Will, and Will suddenly
noticed that his brother’s eyes were very green.
“You remember, in one of the letters I sent you? I said that to
explain things, I kept having to go back farther? Well, to explain this,
I have to go very far back.” He paused. “I have to go back to 1690,
to one of our ancestors. A man named Anson Kendall. He was a
witchhunter, and one of the warlocks he hunted was named Aebedel
Cowdray.”
The very name sent shivers up Will’s spine. He knew that name,
he’d heard it spoken in his nightmares a million times. But never in
plain English, only in the language the voice spoke to him in.
“Anson Kendall crushed a warlock named Aebedel Cowdray
to death beneath seven stones. And with his dying breath, Aebedel
Cowdray cursed Anson Kendall and all his descendants for all eternity. It’s a moon-curse. It reveals itself only after the victim’s eighteenth
birthday. The curse becomes more powerful as the moon waxes,
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gaining its full strength when the moon is full. And as the moon wanes,
so does the power of the curse.”
Will remembered another moon-curse ... the one that had afflicted
the farmboy in the story Jenny had read to him. He blinked, thinking
through it ... in fact, it was all the same! Moon curse, vengeful warlock ...
“Ben ... that’s a goddamn story,” Will hissed. “The Warlock’s Curse.”
“There certainly are similarities,” Ben allowed, but said nothing
more.
“That was the book you told me to use to unlock the letter.” Will
narrowed his eyes, taking a step toward his brother. “Why did you
choose that book, Ben? Did you know? Did you know this would happen to me?”
“No,” Ben said firmly. “I knew about the curse, yes. And I knew
that all of us—all of the brothers—could have potentially inherited
it ... except that Father gave us all the Panchrest. And the Panchrest
should have made it impossible.” He paused. “You shouldn’t have inherited the curse, Will. It wasn’t supposed to happen. But somehow it
did.”
“The Agency warlock ... Bernays ... he said that I hadn’t had the
Panchrest. That his boss had told him I hadn’t.”
This comment gave Ben pause—but then he shook his head dismissively. “Well, his boss wasn’t there. I was. I saw Father give it to you.”
“Did he know?” Will said. “Father? About the curse?”
“Of course Father knew,” Ben said, trying—and failing—to keep
bitterness from his voice. “Father knows everything.”
“So Father didn’t give us boys the Panchrest to protect us from the
Black Flu at all,” Will spat. “He gave it to us to prevent us from getting
the curse. Which is a far better reason than you gave me. Why did you
leave that part out of your letter?”
“Because I didn’t know the truth until later,” Ben said. “And even
when I did know, I still couldn’t forgive him.”
“So you decided to let me believe the worst as well?”
Kala Christouyenna
283
“I wanted to tell you in person,” Ben raked a hand through his
hair. “I couldn’t ... Will, I couldn’t tell you everything. Even on the
Sophos’ stationery, it was too dangerous.”
Ben fell abruptly silent as Dr. Gore entered the dining room, carrying two small glass dishes filled with glossy black olives. Will began eating them in greedy handfuls as soon as Dr. Gore placed them on the
table, swallowing them pits and all. Dr. Gore slapped his hand away.
“Irene will be home soon,” he said. Then he murmured, to Ben:
“Is everything all right? Have you told him?”
Ben nodded. “I’ve told him. He understands now.”
But Will didn’t understand anything. He looked between his brother and Dr. Gore, and in the long moment of silence, he heard singing.
The sound came from the street outside. Women’s voices, sweet
and solemn, singing a holy song in Greek. The front door opened and
closed, and the sound of song faded as the women continued on down
the street.
Irene came into the dining room, dressed head to toe in sober
black, head covered by a scarf.
“Kala Christouyenna, daughter,” Dr. Gore pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Did you ask a blessing of the Reverend Father for me?”
Irene nodded, glancing at Ben and Will but then looking quickly
away.
“Has Harley woken up?” her voice was soft and anxious as she laid
aside her scarf and smoothed her shining black hair.
“Briefly,” Dr. Gore said, and Irene said nothing more as she hurried off to check on him.
“Here’s what I do understand,” said Will, picking up the thread of
their conversation once more. “I’ve inherited a family curse. And there
are warlocks after me. Agency assassins, wearing red orchids. They
were waiting for me in my apartment.”
“You’ve mentioned the Agency twice now, which means you’ve
read The Goês’ Confession.” Ben murmured. He looked at Dr. Gore, then
at Will. “I would advise you not to go around telling people that.”
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“I didn’t read it. My friend told me about it. He said that the warlocks who wear red orchids are from the Agency. And that they kill Old
Users to abide by the terms of the Settlement. So why would they be
interested in me?”
“The powerful possession you suffered would have created an intense magical beacon,” Ben said. “They are trained to watch for such
high levels of magical activity.”
“They will be even more interested in you now,” Dr. Gore added
grimly. “Harley said you were able to banish an entire Trine of Agency
warlocks. That would have taken a hundred times more magical force
than Harley himself expended. You should be in much worse shape
than him—in fact, you should be dead. But, besides being hungry
enough to eat all of our kourambiedes, you aren’t showing the slightest
sign of damage.”
Will absorbed all this information silently. That’s what Bernays
had said. That he should be dead.
“But Bernays wasn’t old,” Will knit his brow. “His men weren’t any
older. They were all of my generation—Malmantic. But all of them
did as much magic as Harley.” Nausea rose in him as he recalled what
Bernays had done to Mrs. Kosanovic. “More, even.”
“They’re credomancers,” Dr. Gore said, with a dismissive shrug.
Ben shot him a warning glance, and the old man fell abruptly silent.
Will narrowed his eyes. “If they’re credomancers, then you must
know who they are. The Sophos of the Stanton Institute must know,
at least—”
“There are many kinds of credomancers, Will, just as there are
many kinds of churches,” Ben interjected. “They all have their own
unique power structures. The Stanton Institute trains credomancers,
but we don’t own them, any more than Tesla Industries owns you.”
He paused. “No, the Agency is something different. It recruits credomancers because they are the least restricted in their use of magical
power.”
“Why would that be?”
Kala Christouyenna
285
“Credomancy uses the least amount of free magic of all the great
traditions,” Dr. Gore said, straightening a knife alongside a plate. “In
fact, the credomancer himself channels very little magic. He draws his
power through the bodies of those who believe in him.”
“So every time Dreadnought Stanton uses magic, he doesn’t suffer
for it ... rather, the people who believe in him do?”
“Something like that,” Ben said.
Will’s head spun. Trying to make sense of it, he thought through
the events of the night before, forcing himself remembering every terrible detail. When he came to the part where Bernays had shown him
the little purple velvet box, alarm seized him.
“What if they’re looking for Jenny?” He suddenly realized he
didn’t know where she was ... where could she have gone?
You know where she went.
Will winced visibly, hands going to his head. Dr. Gore laid a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“Natural after effects,” he murmured. “Your body is accustoming
itself to the new presence that has invaded it. Aebedel Cowdray does
not control your body at the moment, as the moon is on the wane. But
he may still bleed through when you are tired, or weak, or under great
stress.”
Will sank heavily into a chair.
“They have no reason to look for her,” Ben said. “She’s not who
they want. And as for where she’s gone—”
“No,” Will said. “I know where she went. At least I think I do.” He
felt spent and tired and hopeless.
Dr. Gore looked at Ben. “Would you please go find Irene and tell
her that it is time for supper?”
Ben hesitated for a moment, but then nodded and left the dining
room. Pulling out a chair, Dr. Gore sat next to Will, looking into his
face.
“It is a very terrible thing that has happened to you, Will,” he said.
“And I understand, more than you know. The Agency found me too,
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many years ago. I am an Old User—or at least, I was. Until they found
me.”
Will stared at him.
“They found me in the winter of 1894,” Dr. Gore continued, in a
soft contemplative voice. “My dear wife had been very sick, and finally
she died—but not until after I had used too much magic trying to save
her life. The Agency assassins tracked me down.” He paused, remembering. “They gave me a choice. I could either take the Panchrest—
stripping me of my ability to work magic at all—or they would kill me.
The leader of the Trine who found me held out the Panchrest in one
hand, and a silver knife in the other. I chose the Panchrest and was
glad of it.”
“Glad of it?” Will echoed softly.
“Yes, glad of it,” Dr. Gore said firmly. “It was not a choice they
offered Old Users before the Panchrest was developed. If they had
found me just a few years earlier, they would have killed me in secrecy
and silence, a knife in the dark, a silver bullet through the heart.” He
paused. “My daughter was very young and her mother had just died.
There was no one else to care for her. So yes, I was glad that they gave
me the chance to live, even if it meant I could no longer work magic.”
Will shook his head slowly, trying to understand.
“But if you took the Panchrest, how are you still able to work magic?” He looked at Dr. Gore. “You healed that man from the factory.
You sheltered me when I came here. How?”
Dr. Gore clenched his jaw and did not answer. Will suddenly noticed that Ben had returned from speaking to Irene, and was standing
in the doorway of the dining room.
“He needs to know everything,” Ben said. “He can be trusted.”
“Perhaps he can,” Dr. Gore said. “But what about Cowdray?”
Ben dismissed the older man’s reluctance with an impatient
gesture. “There is a way around the restriction, Will. It’s a technique
known as ‘vamping’.”
“The flow of magic through the body can never be entirely blocked,
for some small amount of magic is necessary to sustain human life,”
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287
Dr. Gore said resignedly. “This small amount of residual conductivity can be used to make a low-level magical connection with another
person. In this way, someone who has taken the Panchrest can ‘vamp’
upon the body of another—direct the flow of power through the
magical channels of that person’s body.”
“You use Irene’s body,” Will said, suddenly remembering how Dr.
Gore always held hands with his daughter while he did magic, how it
was always she who held the alembic.
“It is a very dangerous practice,” Dr. Gore said, gravely. “Irene
and I have worked together for many years, and I know her limits as
well as is possible. But even so, the slightest miscalculation could result
in Exunge building up in her body to levels from which she could not
recover.” He paused. “And of course, if such a miscalculation were
ever to occur, I would be powerless to bring her back.”
“That’s why the warlocks from the Agency don’t care too much
about it,” Ben added. “Because the one vamped-upon so frequently
dies. The practice is self-limiting.”
“But it explains how Cowdray can control my body the way he
does,” Will whispered, looking at Ben. “He’s ... vamping on me.”
Ben inclined his head. “The magical mechanism of a curse is fundamentally similar to vamping,” he said. “But if the Panchrest was
given to you—as I saw Father do—then it should not be possible for
Cowdray to work magic through your body, as all the magical channels of your body would have been fused in infancy.” Ben paused.
“On the other hand, if you were somehow not given the Panchrest,
as the Agency warlocks have said, then you should be dead from the
amount of magic you worked.” He sighed. “Neither explanation fits,
little brother.”
Will’s eyes searched the worn carpet. Ben was right. But then he
realized that he didn’t care about explanations—explanations weren’t
solutions. He sat back in the chair, rubbing his face vigorously before
letting his hands drop with a sound of anguish.
“So what am I supposed to do?” he said, finally. “How do I get rid
of him?”
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Dr. Gore said nothing. And Ben could not meet his eyes.
“I don’t know, Will,” Ben said. “I’m sorry.”
Will stared at his brother for a long time.
“What about Dreadnought Stanton? Your Sophos?” Will remembered Jenny’s dramatic reading of The Warlock’s Curse. “The
Dreadnought Stanton books are supposed to be true-life tales. He
saved that farmboy, the one who was cursed. He banished the spirit
that possessed him. Could he save me?”
“Nothing is impossible,” Ben said. But there was no encouragement in the words.
“There is one thing I do know,” Dr. Gore said regretfully, “and that
is we cannot shield you here forever, Will. You must leave here very
soon. And you must go far away.”
Will looked from Ben to Dr. Gore.
“Whatever the reason—however it has happened—you are
nothing less than an Old User in a young man’s body. And the Agency
has targeted you as such.” He paused. “There are avenues open for
those who have been targeted in this way. I can put you in contact
with people who can help you escape the country. They will send you
up through Canada, and then across the Atlantic. There are places
in Europe where Old Users can live in safety. Belgium, I hear, is very
pleasant.”
Will looked at him incredulously. “Belgium?”
“There are places even the Agency cannot reach,” Ben mused.
“I’m not going to Belgium,” Will snapped. “I’m not leaving
America. I have to find Jenny. I have to tell her—”
“She won’t want to see you,” Ben cut him off. “And even if you do
think you know where she is, you’ll only put her in more danger. Stop
thinking like a kid. You can’t afford it anymore.”
Will curled back in his chair, stung. A deep feeling of bitterness
rose in him. Goddamn Cowdray. Goddamn the filthy cruel thing that
now lived inside him.
At that moment, Irene came into the dining room, and Briar was
with her. He limped at her side, leaning heavily on her, and between
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289
his broken nose and the puffy bruises on his face—I gave him those, Will
thought miserably—and the deep inky smudges on his skin he didn’t
look like he should be able to walk at all. But he was, and he was even
dressed nicely in the second-hand suit Will had seen him in before.
When he saw Will he smiled crookedly.
“Hey Will,” he said, his voice soft and weak, as if he had been
screaming. “Kala Christouyenna. That’s ‘Merry Christmas’ in Greek, in
case they ain’t told you.”
Will stood quickly, letting Irene guide Briar to the chair he’d been
slumped in. Irene hovered over him for a moment before Briar gently
pushed her away.
“C’mon, stop fussing,” he said. “That food smells good enough to
kick the guts out of a badger. Let’s eat, huh?”
Irene hurried into the kitchen, followed by her father, and, as
steaming platters were being carried in and laid on the table, Will
crouched beside Briar and spoke quietly.
“How are you?”
Briar chuckled grimly. “That thing in you has got some fight in
it,” he said. “I ain’t had the stuffing knocked out of me like that since
the McKees Rocks Strike in Philadelphia. And even then it took six
Cossacks on horseback with billy-clubs.” He shifted in the chair,
groaning. “But I’ll be all right. I told you, I’m tougher than I look.”
“Thank you for helping me,” Will said. He was silent for a moment before adding, “I didn’t know you were a sangrimancer.”
“I kind of guess I wasn’t much help at all, really,” Briar said. “And
sure I’m a sangrimancer. I ain’t ashamed of it. Why do you think I
took to organizing the magical factories as my specialty?” He paused.
“They’re my people, Will. Your people too now, I reckon. Seeing as
this makes you kind of a warlock, just like the rest of us.”
Will clenched his teeth. “No offense, but I’m not a warlock and I’m
not going to be. I’m going to get rid of this thing, somehow.”
“My gran’dad once told me a story about a cursed man,” Briar
shrugged. “The curse was like yours; some kind of family feud,
someone did someone else wrong. Gran’dad said the only way to
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break a curse like that is if both sides forgive each other. Truly and
completely.”
“Forgive each other?” Will said. “Forgive Cowdray?”
“Truly and completely forgive,” Briar reiterated. “And he’s got to
truly and completely forgive you.”
“Well then,” Will muttered, “I guess I’d better learn to speak Belgian.”
The table was soon piled with food; chicken and rice soup, stuffed
cabbage, beet salad and fried potatoes, and roasted pork, rich savory
mounds of it. Before eating, the Gores stood together before the little
shrine on the eastern wall—Irene dipping her finger into the olive oil
in the lamp and crossing her forehead with it—speaking a low, reverent prayer:
The poor shall eat and be filled, and they that seek the Lord shall praise Him;
their hearts shall live forever and ever.
And as Will stuffed himself, feeling strength return to him, the last
words of the prayer continued to echo in his mind.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
After dinner, there was strong Greek coffee and a sweet bread
decorated with walnuts that Dr. Gore called christopsomo. But stuffed
with food and uncomfortable new knowledge, Will did not feel like
further celebration. He pushed himself away from the table without a
word. No one tried to stop him.
He climbed the narrow stairs to return to the bedroom he’d woken
up in. But as he came into the room, he realized that something had
changed. The room was now very cold. Air was blowing in through
the window. The window that had been closed when he’d woken up.
Something caught Will’s eye. On the pillow of his bed was a handwritten note, stabbed through with a knife. The note bore just one,
terrible line:
Come immediately, and come alone, or Jenny will die. AH.
Atherton Hart.
Kala Christouyenna
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Will trembled with sudden fury. It was just as he had suspected—
just as he had known. Jenny had gone to Hart. But how had Hart found
him here? How had he gotten in through the Gores’ wardings?
If Atherton Hart could get in here, anyone could. And even though
Will knew leaving the house meant risking another encounter with the
warlock assassins, he knew that hiding from them was just forestalling
the inevitable. They were going to come after him anyway, eventually.
Unless he fled the country. Learned to speak Belgian.
And he wasn’t going to do that.
The Gores didn’t deserve to be put in danger by him. Nor Harley,
nor Ben. Will couldn’t ask any of them for help—none of them could
help him anyway. Whatever lay in his future, he had to face it alone.
Worse than alone.
Ripping the note from the pillow, he left the knife. He had a better
blade. It had been given to him by the woman he loved, the woman
he’d hurt. He had to help her.
And if Atherton Hart had done anything to her, Will swore, he
would use that blade to slash the man’s throat.
Will climbed out the window, and was gone.
Chapter Twenty
Rush to Justice
T
he creamy white terra-cotta of the office building on Griswold
glowed in the cold purple light of late afternoon. And even though
it was Christmas day, and the streets were still and deserted, Will knew
that the front door would be open.
He crossed the silent lobby, footsteps echoing. The elevators were
not running, so he had to take the stairs. But the meal at the Gore’s
had strengthened him; Will’s muscles warmed as he took the steps two
at a time.
The stairs did not bring him to the reception area, but rather to a
small hall just off it. The offices had a hushed, deserted feel. The door
of Hart’s office stood open, revealing the large silent space beyond.
The lights were not on; the only illumination came from the afternoon sunlight streaming through the tall windows.
Atherton Hart sat behind the large mahogany desk. A half-open
bottle of whiskey and a revolver sat before him. He stared steadily at
Will, not speaking as Will stopped to stand in the doorway. Instead, he
poured himself another glass of whiskey, and downed it in a swallow.
“I should kill you, you son of a bitch.” Hart said.
“Funny,” Will answered. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
Hart slammed down the glass. “I’m not the one who hurt her,” he
barked. “I’m not the one who—”
“Where is she?”
“Do you really think I’d let you see her?” Hart’s lip curled in
disgust. “She said it wasn’t you. She swore it wasn’t you. But I don’t
believe it.”
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“Then why am I here?”
“Because I need you,” Hart said. He did not hurry to take the
revolver, rather laid his hand on it as casually as if he were picking up
a pen. Pulling back the hammer with his thumb, he leveled it at Will.
“You’re the only one who can save her.”
Fists clenched, Will did not move as Hart held the gun on him.
And Hart’s aim did not waver as he lifted the receiver on the sleek
black enameled desk telephone. He asked the operator for a number
in Chicago.
“Yes, he showed up,” were the first words he spoke. “I’ve got him.”
Then, a long pause as Hart listened to the voice on the other end of
the line. Grunting acknowledgement, Hart replaced the receiver on
the hook and stood.
“Come on,” he said, gesturing with the gun. “We’ve got a train to
catch.”
Hart kept the gun, in the pocket of his cashmere overcoat, pressed
into the small of Will’s back as they walked down Fort Street to Third,
where the old Union Depot stood.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Will made no move
to resist Hart, and he did not intend to. Hart knew where Jenny was.
For that reason, if for no other, Will needed him. And Hart had not
taken the time to search him, so Will still had the razor in his pocket.
He had options.
The heavy sandstone walls of the Union Depot glowed cold and
blood-red. They boarded a train bound for Chicago. Hart had purchased a private compartment, and after he had shoved Will into one
of the seats, he closed the door and locked it. Then, taking the seat
across from Will, he withdrew the gun from his pocket and rested it on
his knee, pointed toward him, his finger on the trigger.
“I’m not going to fight you,” said Will, looking not at the gun but
into Hart’s amber eyes. “I will do anything you say if it will help Jenny.”
Hart snorted. “You lying son-of-a-bitch,” he muttered. “If you
wanted to help Jenny, you would have stayed away from her. Kept that
thing inside you away from her.”
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“You know?” Will narrowed his eyes. “About Cowdray?”
“Of course I know,” Hart snapped. “I know everything. Jenny
showed up on my doorstep a week ago, half dead. I know everything
you did to her.”
Will’s heart lurched painfully in his chest. He swallowed hard. He
did not want to hear it from this man. He didn’t want to know.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked, finally.
“I’m taking you to the Consortium,” Hart said. “They want you.
If they don’t get you, they’ll hurt her even worse.”
“Why do they want to hurt her?”
“They don’t want to hurt her,” Hart spat. “But unless they have
you, they’ll have to. They’ll have no choice.”
“What do you mean they’ll have to? Why will they have to?”
Hart stared at him in silence, the only sound the rattle of the train
swaying over bright steel tracks. Outside, the sun was setting, and long
slanting rays made the air golden.
“You hang around with warlocks,” Hart finally said. “How much
do you know about magic?”
“I don’t want to know anything,” Will said bitterly. Hart hmphed.
“Well, I’d advise that you learn. And quickly. Because that’s
why the Consortium wants you. For your cursed blood. For Aebedel
Cowdray.”
“What would they want with Aebedel Cowdray?”
Hart just stared at him, hatred in his eyes. He said nothing more.
“Why are they going to hurt Jenny?” Will asked, after a very long
silence.
He did not think Hart was going to answer, but finally he did.
“They were supposed to capture you before the full moon,” he
said. “The Consortium had men waiting for you. But you weren’t
where they thought you’d be.”
Will looked away, frowning. The sun had finally set, sliding down
behind dark hills. The waning moon glowed like a half-smile. “But
how could they have known?” he said. “How could they have known
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295
to wait for me? No one knew I had inherited the curse. I didn’t even
know.”
“The Consortium has ways of knowing things,” Hart said.
“Who are they?” Will barked, annoyed by the cryptic statement.
“What do they want?”
“The Consortium wants to make the world a better place,” Hart
said flatly, as if quoting a marketing pamphlet. “That’s all you need to
know.”
“That’s not even the tiniest bit of what I need to know!” Will
hissed. “Jenny was mixed up with them, and so are you. What do they
want with her?”
“The Consortium needed to raise money, and Jenny was helping them,” Hart said. “And I was helping her.” He paused, his voice
softening. “Not that she needed my help. She’s brilliant. I’ve never
encountered a mind like hers.”
Will must have made a sound of anguish at the tenderness in Hart’s
voice, for the man looked up, his eyes suddenly becoming hard. “Yes,
she’s brilliant. And in the time I have worked with her, I have come to
care for her very much. Which is more than you can say.”
“You don’t know anything,” Will said.
“I know that you broke her.” Hart’s voice was flat. “Almost broke
her. Even you couldn’t break her all the way, thank God. She’s stronger than you, stronger than Cowdray. But you both gave it your best
try, didn’t you?”
Will stared at him, his jaw held so tightly that it ached.
“When she came to my office, after she escaped the hotel, I called
a doctor to take care of her physical wounds. And then I called someone else. The Consortium’s magical advisor, a man named Professor
Coeus. I wanted to understand what else it was you’d done. You drew
charms all over her body, in her own blood. Do you know what they
were?”
“No,” Will said. “I don’t know.”
“Some were to hold her down, bind her.” Hart spoke the words in
a clipped, businesslike tone. “I’m sure those were necessary, because
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she probably put up a good fight.” His voice grew harsher with every
word. “Some of them were to cause her pain. Because causing her
pain was apparently very amusing to you.” Now, Hart’s breathing began to quicken with fury. “But the rest ... oh, the rest! They were to
make her want you. After everything else you did. You worked magic
on her to make her believe she wanted it.”
Will closed his eyes. Anguish screamed between his ears, keening
and sharp as the sound of the train’s steel wheels. He couldn’t have.
He couldn’t have done that ... to Jenny.
Hart was silent. When Will opened his eyes again, he saw that
Hart’s hand was gripping the gun so tightly that his knuckles were
white.
“I would give this gun to you right now if I thought you’d do the
right thing with it,” Hart said softly. “Nothing would give me greater
satisfaction than to see your brains splattered on that upholstery behind you. But if you weren’t strong enough to keep Cowdray from
doing what he did, then I’m sure you’re not strong enough to do that,
either.”
“Why don’t you do it for me?” Will murmured. In that terrible
moment, it was a request, not a question.
“Because if they can’t use your cursed blood, they’ll use the next
best thing.” Hart paused, finger twitching on the trigger. “The blood
of your unborn child. Concieved while Cowdray was in your body.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The New Faith Seat of Praise
T
hey did not speak again, but Will could not have even if he wanted
to. He sat with a trembling hand over his mouth, holding in the urge
to scream. The world reeled around him, blank and unreal.
Your unborn child. Concieved while Cowdray was in your body.
And when they arrived at the Union Depot in Chicago near midnight, Will could barely walk, only shuffle like a drunkard, his whole
body leaden and heavy. Hart held his arm with painful firmness, almost having to hold him up as they walked.
Outside the station, piles of dirty snow were frozen hard in the
gutters. At the curb, a black truck painted with the words “Dept. of
Police, Oak Lawn” idled. The driver and a passenger sat in the open
cab, heavily bundled and muffled against the cold. As Will and Hart
approached, one of them got out, opened the back of the truck. Hart
shook his hand firmly.
“Mr. Trahern,” he said.
“So this is him?” Trahern looked at Will’s face for a long moment.
He had pale eyes that made Will feel as if the man was looking past
him, through him. “He doesn’t look like much.”
“He isn’t.” Hart bit the words. “Let’s go.”
Trahern held the doors as Will and Hart climbed inside. There
were two rows of hard wooden seats and a place where shackles could
be locked. Trahern climbed in after them, pulled the back doors shut,
and knocked three times on the truck’s steel roof. The truck pulled
away from the curb.
Trahern looked at Will. “You didn’t tie his wrists?”
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Hart lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t keep rope in the office.” Then he
showed Trahern his revolver. “He didn’t put up a fight.”
“Where we’re going I don’t like to take chances.” Trahern took a
pair of cuffs from his belt. As he leaned in close to snap the icy metal
around Will’s wrists, Will smelled raw onions and cheap aftershave.
“Where are we going?” Will asked, shoulders slumped as he let his
bound wrists hang between his knees.
“Little town,” Trahern said, glancing at Hart. “Outside Chicago.”
“It’s called Justice,” Hart added softly.
Justice.
It sounded familiar, Will thought dully. But perhaps it was only his
guilty conscience that made it seem so.
The drive to Justice took another hour, and the ride was bitterly
cold. Staring out the tiny back window, Will could see snow blowing
in small hard pellets. Hart held his cashmere overcoat tightly around
himself and breathed out clouds of white. When the truck finally
stopped, Will’s fingers were stiff and his whole body was numb. When
Trahern opened the back doors, they stepped out into deep snow.
Wherever this place was, it was very far away from any kind of
civilization. The truck had parked in the middle of a large area bulldozed flat by heavy gasoline machines that still hulked in the distance,
blanketed with snow. Tall black trees ringed the perimeter, cast in
sharp relief by the waning moon, hanging low above dark distant hills.
The men crunched across the snow in the direction of something
looming and dark; an enormous hulking building. Clearly, construction on it had only recently been completed—moonlight shone on
piles of leftover lumber covered with snow-dusted canvas. But electric
light blazed from the building’s windows, powered by lines strung to
slender poles that receded into the dark distance. It was strange that
there would be electricity all the way out here, in the middle of nowhere. But shifting his eyes, Will saw something even stranger.
A Tesla Tower—and a broadcasting one, he could tell, judging by
the small building that squatted at its base.
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Looking away from the tower, Will brought his eyes back to the
main building. The skeleton of a steeple was outlined against the night
sky. Atop it was an enormous cross.
They entered through one of a dozen doors that stretched across
the building’s front—clearly designed to allow hundreds of people to
pass at once—and came through a long wide room that reminded Will
of a theater lobby. At the lobby’s far end, a pair of doors twenty feet
tall stood open just slightly, but that was enough to allow the men to
pass abreast.
Beyond the doors was a cavernous space—a sanctuary. So this was
a church, as the cross had suggested. But Will had never imagined a
church could be so enormous. Thick support columns, carved of fine
white marble, soared into an inky void. The place smelled of sweet
new wood and varnish, candle wax and sacred oil. The main lights
were not switched on, and the only illumination came from a handful
of electric bulbs set in decorative gold sconces.
Will and Trahern remained near the large doors while Hart and
the man who had been driving the truck crossed the vast space. Will
could barely see the group of men they went to speak to, who stood
clustered around the distant altar.
As they waited, something pale and small flitted at the corner of
Will’s vision. He looked harder, trying to see what it was. And there it
was again, a tiny white form in ruffles and lace, darting between two
dim marble columns. Will watched as a small girl, no older than six
or seven, leaned slowly out from behind the column where she was
hiding. Her skin was fish-belly white, as white as the platinum ringlets
that curled wildly around her face. When she saw Will looking at her,
she darted back behind the column and did not come out again.
“What is this place?” Will asked.
“This is the New Faith Seat of Praise,” Trahern said. “The biggest
house of worship ever built in the whole United States. There’s seating
for ten thousand in here.”
Will knit his brow. Who would build a church like this in the middle
of nowhere, Illinois? But then, in a flash, Will remembered where he’d
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heard of the little town called Justice. It had been in Claire’s room,
back in Stockton. On the Teslaphone broadcast.
Coming to you live, from Justice, Illinois ...
Then that explained why there was a broadcasting Tesla Tower
outside ... but while it answered one question, it raised so many more.
Why would Hart bring him here? And why was Brother Phleger—the
charismatic Scharfian preacher whose blot-marked face Will had seen
on a hundred handbills on a hundred walls around Detroit, on a thousand tiny missionary pamphlets—now walking toward him?
Brother Phleger was square and heavily built, like a well-tailored
wrestler. He wore a warm, heavy coat with a collar of thick fur. As
Phleger came near, Trahern seized Will’s arm, drew him close, and
held him firm.
Brother Phleger was strong and good-looking, despite the famous
sickle-shaped mark that slashed his face from eye to chin. He looked
like the kind of man who ate potatoes without salt. He thrust his hand
forward.
“Welcome to Justice, Mr. Edwards,” Phleger said. “I’m glad you
have come.”
“I didn’t have much choice,” Will growled, ignoring Phleger’s
outstretched hand and lifting his wrists to show the cuffs. “Where’s
Jenny?”
“Miss Hansen is here, and she is safe and comfortable,” Phleger
said. He looked at Trahern. “You can remove the handcuffs, Mr.
Trahern. They’re not necessary.”
“But, Brother—”
“Just take ‘em off,” Phleger said, a bit more roughly, and Trahern
hurried to comply.
“I never do business with a man until I’ve shaked his hand,”
Phleger said pointedly, extending his hand again after Trahern had
removed the cuffs.
Will rubbed his wrists, which were cold and raw, but he made no
move to extend his hand. “I don’t know that I have any business with
you,” he said.
301
With a grunt, Phleger reached out and seized Will’s hand, crushing
it. He pumped it powerfully as he took a step closer to Will, bringing
them face to face.
“Dolphus Phleger,” he said, in a low voice. “And we do have business, Mr. Edwards. Very important business. I would like to explain it
to you, if you will give me the chance.”
Will took a deep breath. He nodded.
A bright smile lightened Phleger’s face, making the dark slash
across his cheek seem even darker. “Wonderful,” he said. “Come with
me to my office. We’ll be more comfortable there.” Then, nodding
to Trahern, he turned and began strolling back in the direction from
which he’d come. Trahern pushed Will forward, compelling him to
walk at Phleger’s side. As they walked, Phleger gestured around himself expansively.
“Isn’t it glorious, Mr. Edwards? We completed work just before Christmas. I had planned to consecrate it on New Year’s Day,
to give good Christian people a higher-minded spectacle than that
sensationalist moving-picture garbage Edison Studios is premiering.”
He paused, then lowered his voice with reverence. “But I have had
a Vision. The Lord has commanded me that it must be consecrated
more quickly. The ceremony must take place just two days from now.
His will be done.”
Will looked sidelong at him. “Seems like short notice to get ten
thousand people to change their plans,” he said.
Phleger gave him a warm smile. “Obedience to God’s command
is not always convenient.” He pointed upward, toward a vague multicolored smear that seemed to make up most of the far wall. “It’s a
shame you cannot see our stained glass. It was all done by Mr. Tiffany’s
studio. When the sun shines through that window, it is like bathing in
the light of Jesus’ own redemption.”
“All paid for by Jenny’s money, I suppose?” Will said. “The money
she stole from her father? The money Atherton Hart was helping her
make into a million?”
Phleger shook his head, sighed.
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“You don’t understand anything,” he said. “But you will.”
Phleger’s office was finished to an even finer degree than the rest
of the building, but perhaps it just seemed that way because all the
lights were on and Will could actually see the room’s rich details. The
wood flooring was so new that carpets had not yet been laid upon it,
and it smelled of linseed oil and lacquer. A large framed painting of
the man Will recognized as Brother Scharfe, founder of the Scharfian
sect, hung in a place of honor above a vast desk of carved mahogany.
Seated behind the desk, engulfed in the enormous leather chair,
was the little white-haired girl Will had seen in the sanctuary. Glaring
down at the desk, she was tearing papers in half with intense concentration. Trahern shoved Will into one of the large chairs that were
arranged before the desk, but the little girl didn’t even look up, just
kept tearing the papers slowly, as if liking the sound.
“Why you little heathen!” Brother Phleger roared, but it was the
mock-roar of a cartoon lion. He seized her, lifted her, rumpling her
white ruffled skirts as he spun her around with rough playfulness. She
screamed and tried to bite him, but Phleger just giggled like a naughty
boy and began kissing her face all over, with big dramatic smacks.
“You little scamp! Those are my notes for the broadcast! I should give
you such a tickling!”
The girl writhed desperately in his clutches, and when she finally
broke free she ran across the room. From the safety of that distance,
she stuck her tongue out at him, pink eyes filled with hatred.
“Get out of here,” Trahern growled at her. The girl—whom Will
now realized must be “God’s Special Snowflake,” the famous Little
Sanctity Snow, kicked him hard in the shin before running out the
office door.
“I bought the little savage off some sharecroppers in Arkansas,”
Phleger commented, watching her go. “Haven’t got her quite tamed
yet. Damn good on the organ, though.”
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Trahern made a soft noise of inscrutable implication, then went to
take a watchful position by the door. Phleger continued to stand for a
moment, looking down at Will.
“Are you hungry, Mr. Edwards?” Phleger asked, voice dripping
with concern. “Would you like some hot coffee, perhaps?”
“No.”
Phleger nodded approval.”A young man of action. No time for
niceties. Good. That’s the kind I like to do business with.”
Then he went to a very large safe that seemed to take up almost
an entire wall. It was as heavy as any bank vault, gleaming black and
scrolled with gold. The massive door bore the emblem of a red cross.
Laying his hand on the safe, Brother Phleger bowed his head and
murmured something—a prayer, Will thought, for he heard the word
amen—and then he carefully turned the dial of the safe, shielding the
action from Will’s eyes with his large body.
He reached into the safe and took something out. Then, sitting at
his desk, he placed the object before himself, holding it with two thick
fingers on either side, as if he were afraid it might wriggle away. When
Will leaned forward to look at it, Phleger made a warning noise and
pulled back slightly. Will felt Trahern tense behind him.
“Do not attempt to touch it, Mr. Edwards,” Phleger warned. “Not
yet.”
“What is it?”
“This is a snuff box,” Phleger said. “Do you know what snuff is?
Powdered tobacco. Our forefathers used to take it in pinches. Nasty
stuff. But the snuff is not what interests us. Rather, it is the box itself.”
He drew in a long breath, stroking the box’s top with his thumb.
“It really is a beautiful little thing,” he said. “Crafted in the seventeenth century, chased silver. Very nice, as snuff boxes go. But it
is more than an object of antique fascination, Mr. Edwards. Much
more.”
“You sure use a lot of words for someone who wants to get down
to business,” Will growled.
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Phleger’s eyes widened, but he seemed to take pleasure in Will’s
curtness. He smiled. “Then I will speak more plain.” His voice dropped
by one dark shade. “This box has hell inside it, Mr. Edwards. An eternal hell of tormented souls. And I want you to help us unlock it.”
Will stared at him.
“It is, of course, a synthetic hell,” Phleger commented. “Though I
don’t suppose that matters to the poor souls who have been trapped
inside it for the past two hundred and twenty years—more than that,
really, because within this unholy realm, each year seems ten thousand. It was created by Aebedel Cowdray, the warlock whose spirit
now curses your body. He stole the souls of living men and consigned
them to this hell so that their unimaginable suffering could fuel his
damned practice of sangrimancy. It is Cowdray’s dark masterwork,
a monstrous magical artifact of incredible power. And its power has
been building, untapped, since Cowdray’s death.”
“The box has been secretly guarded since the late seventeenth
century by a parish in Massachusetts, an admirably observant sect.
They always prayed that they might find a way to free the tortured
souls within, but the dark magic Cowdray used to create it was an
impenetrable mystery.” Phleger paused. “We recently absorbed this
church into our own Scharfian Fellowship, and the box came into our
possession. We redoubled the efforts to discover how the artifact could
be cleansed of its evil. And, praise the Lord, he sent us help.”
Here, he made a gesture to Trahern.
“I find that I really would like some coffee,” he said. “And bring
some for Mr. Edwards as well. He looks pale.”
Grunting, Trahern stood motionless for a moment. Brother Phleger
looked at him, and added: “Oh, and you might bring the other thing
we discussed. I believe this is a good time for it.”
When Trahern had gone, Brother Phleger leaned further over the
desk, his large body hulking over the snuff box. Clasping his hands
together, he rested his forehead on them in an attitude of prayer.
“Yes, the Lord sent us help. Help in the form of a man—a creature
of sin who has spent his entire scholarly career studying the magical
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history of Aebedel Cowdray ... but good works may be the path to
Grace! He is the only one who knows the secret of how the box may
be unlocked. How the eternal suffering of the poor souls within might
be ended.” Phleger lifted his eyes, peering at Will over his clasped
hands. “He is called Professor Coeus. He told us that we must find
you—a Kendall descendent who labored under Cowdray’s curse. He
said we must take your blood while the curse was active, during the
five days surrounding the full moon, for your blood could be used to
force Cowdray’s spirit to unlock the snuff box.”
“But you didn’t find me,” said Will, softly. “And now it’s almost a
whole month until the moon is full again.” His stomach turned at the
thought of Cowdray returning, seizing control of his body.
Phleger shook his head regretfully. “No, we did not find you. You
did rather ruin our plans, running off the way you did—” He stopped
abruptly, his face becoming grave as he seemed to remember how
much more Will had ruined. “But the Lord works in mysterious ways.
For He has blessed you with an extraordinary—a miraculous—ability.
You can channel Cowdray’s power even when the moon is not full.
You used it to banish an entire Trine of Agency warlocks, I am told.”
“I don’t know how I did that,” Will said in a dull voice.
“It doesn’t matter if you know it or not,” Phleger said. “Professor
Coeus knows. He knows everything. He will tell us what we must do.
He will be here in the morning.”
There was a long silence, during which Trahern returned with
a tray bearing two cups of steaming coffee. He was not alone. Two
people followed him. Hart—and Jenny.
As Trahern set down the coffee, Will had to clutch the sides of the
chair to keep from leaping to his feet.
Jenny clung to Hart’s arm, pressing herself against him. She
looked tiny, snuggled deeply into her fur coat. Her face was set with
strange bitterness.
“Jenny,” he breathed, her name catching in his throat. But she did
not look at him.
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“I thought you might like to say hello,” Phleger said. “As I have
promised you, she is safe and well. And she agrees with our plan. Don’t
you, Jenny?”
“They can help Claire, William,” she said, her voice hard and distant. “That’s all I ever wanted to do.”
“How can unlocking the snuff box possibly help Claire?” Will
turned his eyes back to Phleger, not able to bear the pain of looking
at Jenny any longer. “And what about the million dollars Jenny was
raising, why did you—”
“By sacrificing the unholy works of this fiend upon the altar of
our faith, the Lord will reward us with more righteous power than
all Satan’s forces combined!” Phleger interjected loudly, rapturously.
He turned moist eyes onto Jenny. “Imagine it, dear child. All the poor
suffering victims of the Black Flu—healed in an instant. Your sister
Claire made healthy and whole. We can do it, if this young man will
help us. Don’t you think he should?”
Jenny did not answer, rather she just made a sound. A strange
sound, a throaty growl. Hart laid a comforting hand over hers.
“She’s still very tired,” Phleger said, deep compassion making his
voice sound oily. “Take her out, Mr. Hart. She needs to rest.”
When they were gone, Will did leap out of his chair, a cry of rage
on his lips. Trahern crossed the room in two steps, grabbing Will’s arm
and twisting it behind his back. Phleger watched Will calmly.
“Hart said that if I didn’t help you’d hurt Jenny,” Will breathed,
gasping as Trahern pushed his arm higher. “How does that fit in with
this plan of Christian charity you’ve outlined?”
Phleger’s face became thoughtful, and sad. “Even you must be
able to see, Mr. Edwards, that one little life cannot be privileged over
the lives of so many who now suffer. Yes, we could use the child in
her body. But hurting her—forcing her—would be monstrous. That
doesn’t mean, however, that we would refuse if she ... offered herself.
She loves her sister. And just as our Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb of
God, offered himself as an all-sufficient sacrifice for the redemption
of mankind’s sins—”
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Will cut off the words with a horrible noise, a strangled cry of pain
and anguish.
“Do not ask her to make that choice,” Phleger concluded. “Do not
give her that cross to bear. Bear it for her. You owe her that much.”
Will released a long breath, his body slumping in defeat. As he did,
Trahern loosened the grip on his arm.
Phleger leaned back, drawing the box closer to him as he did. He
closed his eyes in an attitude of reverie. “Sometimes I can feel the souls
inside it, screaming. This box is an unholy evil that must be purged. It
is a crime of unimaginable vastness that must be avenged.” He opened
his eyes quickly, and fixed Will with a piercing gaze. “Help us, Mr.
Edwards. Help us in this great holy crusade. Help Jenny’s sister, and
all of those like her. Help the tormented souls in that box obtain their
release from the anguish they’ve labored under for so many countless
aeons.”
When Will said nothing, Phleger stood and put the box back in the
safe. He closed the heavy steel door, turned the dial. Then he picked
up his cup of coffee and sipped at it delicately.
“Take some time to pray on it, Mr. Edwards,” he said, warming
his hands with the cup. “Professor Coeus will be here in the morning.
We will talk more then.”
After this interview, Trahern escorted Will to a “cell”—a word he
clearly used in its penitentiary rather than religious sense—and locked
him in. The cell reminded Will of Claire’s room at the asylum—bare,
sparse and clinical. Just as in Claire’s room, there was a Teslaphone,
playing soft organ music, but it was installed behind a wooden grate in
the wall, and could not be turned off.
The room contained few furnishings—little more than a narrow
bed and a simple pine desk and chair. Sitting on the edge of the bed,
Will rested his face in his hands. His face felt very hot, and he rubbed
it slowly.
Phleger told a good story. A good story, told in the smooth persuasive language of a preacher. But applying his rigorous scientific mind
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to what Phleger had said, Will began to see all the holes, and all the
questions he wished he’d asked piled on top of each other. Hart had
said that the Consortium had intended to capture him on the night of
the full moon ... but that would mean they’d known he would inherit
the curse. And how could they have possibly known that? Were they
just going to kidnap him on the off chance that he had? That didn’t
seem like much of a goddamn plan.
And furthermore, if their intentions were so Christian and just,
why not just ask him? Why hadn’t they come to him before the full moon
and presented their case? Why had they waited? And what about the
million dollars Jenny was trying to raise for them? Phleger had never
answered his question about that.
Hissing frustration through his teeth, Will rolled back onto the narrow bed, flinging his arm over his eyes. As he did, something pressed
against his leg. Feeling the pockets of his trousers, he remembered
that no one had thought to search him. They had not taken his razor.
That was good, Will thought. But what could he do with it? While
the thought of slashing Trahern’s face—or better, Hart’s—gave him a
kind of savage pleasure, he realized that even if he managed to escape
it would do him no good. They had Jenny, and if he was gone, they’d
use her, just as Phleger had said. Ask her to sacrifice herself for her
sister, and for the greatest good. Having just experienced Phleger’s
overpowering rhetorical skills, Will had little doubt the preacher could
persuade her. Make her think it was her idea. He wouldn’t force her,
no. But he would make her agree.
There was something else in his pocket as well, he realized. The
little purple velvet box. Clicking it open, he stared at the shining silver
dollar. Jenny had looked so small, clinging to Hart’s arm.
A key scraped in the lock. Will sat up, closing his hand quickly,
hiding the box as the door jerked open. Trahern looked at Will up and
down, frowning.
“Yes, he’s awake,” said Trahern, to someone behind him. “But I
don’t think Brother Phleger would like it.”
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“I don’t care what Brother Phleger likes.” Jenny’s voice was harsher
than Will had ever heard it—harsher even than when she’d threatened
Dr. Smyth at the asylum. “He may be your boss, Trahern, but I’m the
one paying your salary. Don’t forget it.”
The steel edge to her voice was sufficient to make Trahern redden
and step back. And then Jenny came briskly into the room, coming to
stand just near the door, which Trahern left half open. She stood with
her hands clasped sternly beneath her breastbone, and Will hardly
recognized her.
She was beautiful, of course, beautiful as she’d always been—but
it was as if the soft, sweet girl he’d known had been replaced with a
woman carved of stone. She had cut off all her loose edges. Anything
untucked, unsmoothed, had been restrained with perfect severity.
Even the loose curl that had always fascinated him was firmly pinned
back, as tightly as if it were being punished.
She looked around the room angrily, as if she too were reminded
of Claire’s prison. She frowned at the Teslaphone, at the weak strains
of silky organ music.
“I have to tell you what happened,” she said crisply, as if delivering a
report. “There’s a lot you should know. Maybe it can help you. Cowdray
asked me things. He asked me about you, first. He asked me about your
family, and I told him. I told him everything he wanted to know.”
“Jenny—” Will began, softly.
“He seemed to know your mother,” she continued as if he hadn’t
spoken, hitting every word with precision. “I don’t know how. He said
she must be the Russian’s brat. I don’t know what that means. He asked
about something called the Anodyne. I told him I didn’t know what
that was.” She paused, a tenseness in her jaw indicating the terrible
force of whatever it was she was holding under restraint. “It made him
angry that I didn’t know.”
Will didn’t speak. Court had read in The Goês’ Confession that scientific alteration to the magical structure of the Earth had been wrought
with something called Lyakhov’s Anodyne. But how could Cowdray
know about that?
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Jenny drew a deep quavering breath. “He hates you, William,” she
said, very quietly. “I’ve never known someone with so much hate in
him. He kept asking me which would hurt you more, if he killed me
or left me alive. He decided leaving me alive would be worse. He took
steps to ensure that it would be.”
Will could only stare at the floor, numb and distant. He clutched
the little velvet box in his hand, holding on to it for dear life. Organ
music hummed softly in his ears.
“But I am glad that I’m alive,” she concluded, finally. It sounded as
if she were trying to convince herself of it. “He likes to hurt people’s
bodies. But he likes to hurt their minds more. That’s something else
you should know about him.”
“I don’t want to know anything about him,” Will murmured. “I
want to kill him.”
He felt Jenny staring at him. When he looked up to meet her gaze,
he saw that there was a queer kind of disgust in her eyes.
“Well, you can’t. You’re stuck with him.” Her hand slid to her belly
unconsciously. “Just like I am.”
She paused.
“It’s strange how I feel like I used to know so many things,” Jenny
said. The words were wistful, but the tone was not. “I was sure of
everything. But now I’m not sure of anything at all. It feels dangerous
to be sure of anything.”
She paused again.
“But I am sure of one thing. I know it wasn’t you. You’re my friend.
You’ll always be my friend.”
Will looked at her. Moving very slowly and carefully, he stood. He
saw her tense, saw fear enter her eyes. But then she lifted her chin
and glared at him defiantly—she would not be cowed by him, or her
memory of him. He lifted a hand.
“It’s all right,” he said softly. “Please.”
He did not try to move near to her, but rather stretched his arm
out as far as it would go. He was careful not to touch her as he laid the
velvet box in her palm. For some reason, he remembered how Brother
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Phleger had told him not to touch the snuff box. As if doing so would
be very dangerous.
Then he stepped back from her, returning to the narrow bed
and sitting down, back straight, hands clasped between his knees. He
watched as she opened the little box. When she saw what was inside it,
she drew a tiny breath. And then she smiled, her face softening. Will
exhaled, his whole body suddenly warm. That was Jenny, he thought,
feeling as though he might weep. There she was.
“I remember this,” she murmured, touching the silver with her
fingertip.
“We won’t see each other anymore, Jenny,” Will said. “I know we
won’t. It’s better that way.” He paused, then added, “But if you ever
do think about me, will you please try to think about me like that? Like
the way things were then?”
She closed the box quietly. She didn’t say anything else. She turned,
and was gone.
When she had left, Trahern came to the door, looked at Will. His
eyes, so very pale, were filled with something ugly and insinuating.
Shaking his head, he barked a laugh as he closed the door and locked
it once more.
Slowly, Will laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, listening
to the organ music. He did not feel better, or worse. He just felt heavy
and tired, as if he’d walked a hundred miles.
And then, he remembered something that made his heart race. He
remembered that there was one more thing in his pocket.
Ben’s letter.
He took it out and unfolded it. There was new writing on it.
I know where you are.
Whatever happens, say nothing. There is more to this than you
know. Trust me.
Ben
Chapter Twenty-Two
Professor Coeus
Five days until the new moon
M
any hours later, Will woke to the sound of Brother Phleger’s
voice.
This is a message to all the faithful. It is perhaps the most urgent call you will
ever receive.
The words were charged with such intensity that Will sat bolt
upright. After a disoriented moment, he realized that the sound was
coming from the Teslaphone.
Brothers and Sisters, beloved sons and daughters redeemed by the all-sufficient
grace of Jesus Christ our Savior-I have received a Vision. A Vision from most Holy
God Almighty, with whom we walk in faith.
Will was aware of his own breathing, shallow and quick. Golden
afternoon sunlight streamed down through a high barred window,
making a perfect square on the floor. He stared at it as he listened.
The Lord has directed me that the Consecration of our Great Temple in Justice,
Illinois must happen not on New Year’s Day, as I originally decreed it should be.
Rather, it must happen tomorrow night ... tomorrow night, brothers and sisters, on
the 28th day of December, at the very hour of midnight!
Here, Brother Phleger’s voice began to rise.
This is a call, my beloved ones! A call that each servant of Christ should be
proud to answer! It is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to demonstrate your obedience to
His Holy Will! Will you show your faith? Will you prove your ever-submissive
obedience to his Holy command?
Professor Coeus
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Phleger’s voice was becoming louder and louder, rising to an impassioned crescendo. Will pressed his hands to his ears against it.
Will you lay aside your worldly concerns? Will you come today, this very hour,
this very moment?
Then, Phleger’s voice dropped almost to a whisper, and even across
the crackly speaker of the Teslaphone, Will could hear the preacher
breathing hard.
Come now, my brothers and sisters. Come immediately. Bring friends, your
families, loved ones. Climb on board trains, automobiles, horse-drawn carts if you
must! Come now, that your name might be written in the book of Glory alongside
all the true servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There was a long moment of silence. It sounded as if Brother
Phleger might have collapsed in a fit of religious ecstasy.
And then, the broadcast repeated.
This is a message to all the faithful. It is perhaps the most urgent call you will
ever receive.
The broadcast kept repeating, and Will had to listen through it
twelve times before Trahern came for him.
“Professor Coeus made it on the afternoon train.” Trahern
glanced at the Teslaphone. “He could hardly get a ticket; everything
to Chicago is sold out, thanks to the brother’s impassioned appeal—
Praise the Lord.”
Will you lay aside your worldly concerns? Will you come today, this very hour,
this very moment?
“He and the good brother are waiting for you in the office,”
Trahern said. “Come on.”
As they walked to the office, they passed through the vast sanctuary that Will remembered from the night before. Then, it had been
a cavernous realm of shadows and ghosts, but by day it glowed with
brilliantly colored light that streamed through acres of stained glass.
An enormous electrical organ with no fewer than four tiers of keys
hulked against one wall. The space was even bigger than Will could
have imagined.
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And already, it was filling with people.
A thousand, at least, had arrived already. How could they have
gotten there so quickly? They sat in the new polished pews, having
brought their traveling bags with them, women and men murmuring
prayerfully among themselves. A few knelt in the aisles, bathed in
soft colored light, oblivious to all earthly concerns.
When Will entered Phleger’s office, he saw that two men were
already waiting for him. Phleger was seated at his desk, bent over
a mountain of papers, clearly in a frenzy of preparation for the
moved-up Consecration ceremony. Another man—Will guessed this
was Professor Coeus—stood behind him, his back to the door. He
had his hands clasped behind him, and was looking up at the picture
of Brother Scharfe. He was tall and slender, with walnut-brown hair.
He wore a suit of no distinction. He did not even have to turn for
Will to realize who he really was.
Ben.
Will clenched his jaw so tightly he thought his teeth might crack.
Trust me, Ben had written. But if Ben was the man Phleger
knew as “Professor Coeus,” that meant he’d been working with the
Scharfians since they found the box. It meant he was the one who’d
told them about the curse, about Aebedel Cowdray ... about everything. But Ben hadn’t told him any of it.
Ben turned then, his face held with smooth indifference. There
was nothing on it that showed he recognized Will at all. He remained
standing with his hands behind his back, his bearing stiff and formal. He looked different—older, heavier, weightier. He commanded
respect. Before, his rumpled suit had made him look like a bank
clerk. Now, its very shoddiness seemed to assert a kind of arrogant
superiority—the mark of a man with far more important matters on
his mind.
“Good morning, Mr. Edwards,” Phleger said, standing to welcome him. “Allow me to introduce you to Professor Coeus.”
Ben made no gesture of greeting, just continued to peer at Will
with supercilious contempt.
Professor Coeus
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“He must be prepared,” Ben said, in a loud clipped tone. He didn’t
even sound like himself. He spoke—like Father or Uncle Royce—with
a note of command that assumed compliance. “I will speak with him
privately.”
Phleger nodded, gathering up a stack of papers and squaring them
neatly. “The office is at your disposal, Professor. I’ve got members of
the international press waiting to speak with me. They, too, have been
arriving in droves, clamoring for information about our holy work. His
will be done!”
Will managed to hold his tongue for a few seconds after Phleger
had gone—trailing Trahern behind him like a shadow—and the door
was closed behind them. Finally, though, he could remain silent no
longer.
“You bastard,” he whispered.
“Will, stop and listen to me.”
“You lying bastard,” Will continued, as if his brother had not
spoken. He crossed the room in a furious rush and seized Ben by his
lapels, forcing him back against the wall. Putting his face close, he
hissed, “How much of what you made me believe was a lie? Were they
all lies? All of them?”
“I didn’t lie to you,” Ben said. His green eyes regarded Will steadily
as he spoke. “I just didn’t tell you everything. I am a researcher. And a
Jefferson Chair. And a secret agent for the Stanton Institute.”
He let the words hang. Slowly, Will released him and stepped back,
breathing hard, heart pounding.
“Now listen to me, and listen carefully. Use your fine mind, not
your hot head. There’s a lot I have to tell you if we’re going to survive
this.”
Will growled, turning away abruptly.
“I know what Phleger has told you about me. And much of it is
true,” Ben began. “My name actually is Coeus—Benedictus Coeus.
It’s the professional name I took when I was hired by the Institute. And
I am an expert on Aebedel Cowdray. I have studied him for years—
that’s why the Institute gave me this assignment.” He paused. “But as
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I’m sure you’ve already guessed, if Phleger finds out who I really am,
or what my real relationship is to you, we’re all dead. You, me ... and
Jenny.”
“Phleger wouldn’t have even known about Jenny if it hadn’t been
for you,” Will spat. “Hart told me that you saw her. Examined her.
Was it you who told Phleger that the blood of her child ... my child ...
could be used to unlock the box?”
“Phleger didn’t need me to tell him!” Ben spat back. “A child
conceived when a curse is active bears the cursed blood, that’s fundamental magical theory—and Phleger knows enough about magic
to know that!” He paused, his expression pained. “It’s Atherton Hart
who doesn’t. He bought a goddamn dime-store pregnancy charm
and worked it on her to find out. By the time they called me in,
Phleger already knew. Hart had already told him.”
Fury rose in Will’s chest. That fool. That damn fool.
“Now listen,” Ben said again, more sharply. “I was assigned by
the Institute to infiltrate the Scharfian Fellowship and get the snuff
box away from Phleger. We cannot allow him to unlock it. I’m sure
he told you that he wanted to free the tortured souls—just like he
told Jenny that he wanted her money to save her sister. And when
he said those things, they were the truth—at that moment.” Ben
paused. “But the real truth, the bigger truth, is that every action he’s
taken has been toward a more ambitious and infinitely more dangerous goal.”
“What do you mean, the real truth?” Will interjected. “How can
he be telling the truth and lying at the same time?”
“That question is the very foundation of credomancy,” said Ben.
Will raked a hand through his hair. “Then you’re saying Phleger
is—a credomancer?”
Stepping behind the desk, Ben sank heavily into the leather chair.
He rubbed his face with his hands.
“No, Will. He’s not a credomancer—but he’s the most sophisticated practitioner of credomancy I’ve ever encountered. He’s nothing less than a magical savant.”
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Will made an exasperated gesture. “How can he practice credomancy, but not be a credomancer?”
“Because a credomancer must have some degree of self-consciousness. Phleger is no more self-conscious than an amoeba. There isn’t an
ounce of hypocrisy in him, not the slightest bit of calculation or guile.
He believes every word he says at the moment he says it, and that’s
what makes him so powerful—and so dangerous.” Ben paused, leaning back in the chair and looking up at Will. “You’ve heard him speak
of his Visions, haven’t you? They are how he rationalizes his conscious
actions—by attributing them entirely to his God. He does not want
what he wants—he makes God want it for him.”
“And what does he want God to want for him?” said Will, resting
both hands on the desk so he could look more closely into his brother’s
face.
“What Phleger wants—really wants, though God has not yet told
him this—is to use the power inside the box to change the entire structure of American society,” Ben said.
Will narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“His Vision—his Great Vision—is of a sanctified America where
the human ability to channel magic has been wiped out for good,
through the implementation of mandatory Panchrest immunization.
I can’t even begin to explain what kind of havoc that would unleash
... but he intends to make this Vision into a reality. And that’s why,
tomorrow night, at the conclusion of the Consecration ceremony, he
will announce his bid to become President of the United States.”
Will straightened, bringing a hand up over his mouth. He turned,
took a step away from the desk.
“The money Jenny raised is manna from Heaven for his campaign
war-chest,” his brother’s voice came at his back. “But while a million
dollars is a lot of manna, it’s not just money Phleger needs. It’s power.
Enough power to destroy the one individual who stands between him
and the achievement of his Great Vision.” Ben paused. “Dreadnought
Stanton.”
Will turned, stared at his brother blankly. Ben took a deep breath.
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“As a credomancer, Dreadnought Stanton gains power when people believe in him, when they are inspired by his grandiose achievements. Over the past 30 years, as he has continued to find new ways
to capture the public imagination, he has steadily gained in strength.”
Ben rested his chin on his steepled fingertips.
“But the popular imagination is a finite resource—and the very
large share that Dreadnought Stanton commands is a share that
Brother Phleger can never fully access. Without it, he can never
achieve his Great Vision. So it must be reclaimed; reclaimed, sanctified, and placed in the service of the Lord Almighty.” Ben paused.
“Dreadnought Stanton is a distraction. While that distraction exists,
Phleger has no chance of turning those minds back to Christ. So the
distraction must be ... eradicated.”
“Are you saying he intends to—kill Dreadnought Stanton?” Will
forced the words through clenched teeth.
“Well ... facilitate his demise, at any rate,” Ben said. “Phleger’s
faith would never allow him to commit cold-blooded murder. But holy
vengeance is just as bloody,” Ben lifted an eyebrow. “I have no doubt
that Phleger would rationalize the act beautifully. It would not be murder, rather it would be chastisement in the name of all Holy God—”
“I get it,” Will cut him off sharply. “Enough.”
“If Dreadnought Stanton were dead, all of the Institute’s power
would come up for grabs—and no one would be in a better position
to seize it than Brother Phleger.” Ben gazed down thoughtfully at the
work-strewn desk before him. “Really, it would be simplicity itself—all
he’d have to do is preach a sermon of condolence to a grieving nation.
Adding, at the end, a twist of the knife about how, despite his wellpublicized heroism, Dreadnought Stanton had clearly been judged by
the Lord Almighty as nothing better than a sinful warlock.”
Will absorbed this silently. He could just hear Phleger speaking
those very words, the sermon crackling across Teslaphone speakers
from coast to coast. He looked up at Ben. “But how does he intend to
kill Dreadnought Stanton?”
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“That’s another bit of untutored brilliance.” Lifting his eyes, Ben
smiled grimly. “Dreadnought Stanton’s whole mythology is built on his
quests to retrieve powerful and malign magical artifacts, right? That’s
the central plot of just about every one of his books. As a magical
artifact, the snuff box is as powerful and malign as they come. Phleger
believes that my Sophos will try to reclaim it—must try to reclaim it.
And when he does, Phleger will use the power in it to kill him.”
“Well if you already know that, just tell your Sophos not to come!”
Will threw up his hands. “He doesn’t have to come for the snuff box!”
“Of course he’s not going to come,” Ben snapped, annoyed with
Will’s slowness. “I just told you Brother Phleger’s plan—as much as
he has a plan within that welter of half-formed subconscious impulses
that he attributes to divine guidance. What’s going to happen, however, is that we’re going to get this box out of here—get it away from
Brother Phleger, and back to the Institute, where it can be kept safe.”
“And how exactly are we going to do that?”
“The only way we can. We must unlock it and use its power before
Phleger can.”
“We have to unlock the box—to keep Phleger from unlocking the
box?” Will shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense!”
Ben drew a deep breath. “Will, we are inside a credomantic organization that is as strong as the Institute. And tomorrow at midnight,
when they perform the Consecration, it will become infinitely stronger.
We are trapped within walls of impenetrable faith. Our only possible
means of escape is brute force—the kind of force contained within the
snuff box.”
Will thought through all this.
“But if Dreadnought Stanton is in no real danger ... and the box
is no threat to anyone if it’s not unlocked .... and Phleger says you’re
the only one who knows how to unlock it ...” Will made a gesture that
suggested the conclusion was obvious. “Why should we unlock it at
all? Why not just leave it as it is, locked and useless? Then no one could
use it—not the Scharfians, not anyone.”
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“Oh yes, that’s a wonderful idea,” Ben sneered. “Just exactly what
do you think Brother Phleger will do when I tell him no? When I tell
him that I’ve decided not to assist him in accomplishing his highest
holy crusade?”
“God will probably tell him to kill you,” Will regarded his brother
coldly. “But I don’t see why he’d hold it against Jenny or me.”
Ben blinked at him in astonishment. Then he exhaled slowly.
“You’ve got more Cowdray in you than I imagined,” he said
harshly. “No, Will. He wouldn’t kill me. He would tear my mind to
shreds with righteous indignation, looking for the information. And
very quickly, he would discover the truth.”
“And which kind of ‘truth’ is that?” said Will, with faint irony. He
was beginning to be very wary of that particular word.
“That he doesn’t really need me at all.” Ben said, his glossy green
eyes reflecting Will’s silent astonishment. “There’s no secret to opening the snuff box. It is true, it does require a magical connection to
Cowdray’s spirit, a connection that could be established using you,
or—” Ben stopped abruptly, looking away. “But beyond that, it only
requires overcoming Cowdray’s resistance with sufficient magical
force. Of course I know how to do it—but so would even the most
casual student of magic.”
“Well, why doesn’t God tell him this?” Will snapped.
“Because at the moment, Phleger perceives me as a necessary evil.
The good brother protects his holy self-image by believing that I am
the only one who knows how to open the box,” Ben snapped back.
“He doesn’t keep me around for my magical knowledge. He keeps me
around to be his sin-eater.”
Ben leaned forward, his voice becoming both softer and more intense. “But if I cross him, or thwart him in any way, I will become an
unnecessary evil. Phleger’s subconscious defenses would swarm against
me. And I have no doubt that God would tell him—in the form of a
well-timed Vision—that anything I can do, he can do a million times
more powerfully. When he decides he wants God to want that for him
... we really are all dead.”
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Ben paused to let these words sink in. Then he continued.
“Unlocking the box is a risk, yes. An enormous risk. But given the
amount of power Phleger has, it’s going to get unlocked, one way or
another. Using you—or the blood of your child.” This time he did
not pull the punch, but rather hit the last few words with painful emphasis. “The only way any of us are going to get out of here alive is
if we control how it happens, and control what happens to the power
afterwards.”
Will thought about this for a long time. The sound of organ music,
soft and muffled, filtered in through the walls. That must be Little
Sanctity Snow playing, Will thought. He thought of how she’d sat at
Phleger’s desk, intensely ripping his papers to shreds. He looked up at
his brother.
“Just tell me one thing, Ben. And tell me the truth. Did you know
that I would inherit the curse?”
“No!” Ben said, a note of anguish in his voice. “I didn’t know. I’ve
told you that already, and it was the truth. I saw Father give you the
Panchrest. How could you possibly inherit the curse? But to infiltrate
the Consortium, I had to be of value to them. I had to give them
information, and there had to be truth in it. I had to make them believe.” He paused. “It had to be you. You were a Kendall descendant,
just turned eighteen. The Consortium knew that none of the other
Edwards brothers had inherited the curse. You were the only plausible
candidate. I gave them a story, Will. That’s all I have the power to do,
tell people stories and make them believe them. I had no way of knowing it would turn out to be the truth.”
“But if you believed I wouldn’t inherit the curse, how did you intend
to get the snuff box?” Will said, following the logic through. “What did
you think would happen when they found out I didn’t have the cursed
blood they needed?” He gestured around himself broadly. “How did
you expect to get the snuff box out of this great center of power then?”
“If things had gone as they were supposed to, the snuff box wouldn’t
be in this great center of power,” Ben said bitterly. “Brother Phleger
was in Detroit on the night of the full moon—December 16th. He was
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holding an old fashioned revival at the Detroit Scharfian Fellowship. I
had convinced him to bring the snuff box with him to Detroit. It was
almost impossible to get him to take the chance—you’ve seen how
careful he is with it. But I did. I convinced him. I told him a very good
story.”
Ben paused, his face dark and intense. He stared down at the desk
for a moment, fists clenched. Then he took a deep breath, and released it slowly.
“And if things had gone according to plan ... if you’d met me at
the station as you were supposed to ... then Trahern would have taken
us both to him. To wherever he was keeping the snuff box. And the
Institute warlocks shadowing me would have followed, and they would
have seized the box in a place away from Phleger’s center of power. It
would have been a difficult battle, but they would have prevailed.”
He paused again. “But you didn’t meet me. And Trahern did not
take me to Phleger. And so, here we are.”
Will bowed his head. The organ music had become heavy and
slow.
“I didn’t know where you were,” Ben continued. “I didn’t know
what had happened to you. But I never imagined it was actually the
curse ... until Hart contacted Phleger and told him about Jenny.” He
paused. “When I saw the charms on her body, I knew. I knew it had
to be Cowdray.”
He looked at Will.
“I also knew that the most sensible course of action was for me to
return to the Institute. Extract myself from the situation; put myself
out of Phleger’s reach. He believes I hold the secret to unlocking the
box—so the best move would have been to keep myself, and the secret
he believes I possess, away from him. It would not have been a permanent solution, but it would have slowed him down. It would have
made him waste valuable time. And the Institute needed that time. It
needed it very badly.”
Ben stretched his hand out flat, staring hard at his own fingers, as
if there was some kind of secret within them.
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“But I knew what he would do with that time. The only thing he
could do—figure out some way to use Jenny. And no matter what God
told him to do to her, it surely would have hurt her more than she’s
already been hurt. If I let that happen, you’d never forgive me. That’s
why I put that note on your pillow.”
Will was shocked. “You?”
Ben nodded.
“The Gores warded their whole house against Agency warlocks
... do you really think a fool like Atherton Hart could get past them
and stab a knife into your pillow?” Ben scoffed. “No, Will. I sent you
to him, so that he would bring me to you. Because I knew that you
and I together could have a chance of making this work. As long as
I keep Phleger fooled about how important I am to him, and you do
everything exactly as I say, we can save Jenny, get the box, escape to
safety, everything. I know we can do this, little brother. Trust me.” He
grinned crookedly. “It’ll all come out all right.”
Will absorbed all this. Finally, he sighed. “You could have told me
all this at the Gore’s, and spared me the trouble of climbing out the
window.”
“Phleger would have known.” Ben lifted an ironic eyebrow. “You’re
not a very good liar, Will. Besides—I couldn’t have told you earlier;
that’s not how credomancers operate.”
“You’re not a credomancer,” Will said.
“But I am a storyteller,” Ben said. “And we happen to work in much
the same way.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Sanctum Sanctorum
T
he jangling ring of the desk telephone shattered the silence, making
them both jump. Ben lifted the receiver quickly, and listened.
“Yes, the preparations are complete,” he replied sharply. “You
must come immediately. I have discovered something very important.”
Ben replaced the receiver in its cradle and turned to Will.
“Phleger is coming,” Ben leaped out of the chair. “Things will
happen fast now. Try to keep up.”
A suitcase, damp from melted snow, sat near the office door. Ben
retrieved it, took a key from his pocket, and unlocked it.
“It is of utmost importance that we escape with the box before the
Consecration ceremony,” he said, opening the suitcase. It was filled not
with clothes, but rather with books and papers. “The ceremony will
cement this place as Brother Phleger’s center of power. After it is complete, these walls will be magically impregnable. That’s why Phleger
moved up the ceremony. He knows that you can access Cowdray’s
power ... and he knows that the Institute knows it.”
Will knit his brow, puzzled. “How does the Institute know it?”
Ben’s eyes flashed alarm, but the look quickly coagulated into annoyance. He shook his head sharply.
“I don’t have time to explain everything, Will. Phleger expects that
Dreadnought Stanton will try to get the box before the Consecration
puts it out of his reach. He’s fortifying his center of power to keep my
Sophos from getting in ... and if we don’t get out before the ceremony
is complete, we might not get out at all.”
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Ben swept all of Phleger’s paperwork to one side and began pulling
his own papers from within the suitcase. He spread these out over the
desk as if he’d been working on them during Phleger’s absence. He set
a pen and pot of ink nearby to complete the illusion. Will peered down
at the sheets—they were all covered with hastily scribbled astrological
charts and horary calculations.
“I have to convince Phleger to move up the ceremony, and keep
him from questioning his faith in me at the same time.” Ben paused,
his face going slightly pale, as if realizing the enormity of the task
before him. Visibly steeling himself, he pulled several leather-bound
astrological reference tomes—tables of houses, ephemeredes, sidereal
atlases—out of the suitcase and thumped them down in dusty piles.
“So I’ve cooked up a damn good story—my best yet.”
Having arranged the papers and books to his satisfaction, Ben
then reached into his pocket and produced a silver tin that rattled. He
opened it and thrust it at Will. “Quick, take one of these—no, take
two.”
Will looked into the tin. “Candy?”
Ben rattled the tin at him insistently. “They’re a magical potion,
just in a different form. Come on!”
Will took two of the candies and popped them into his mouth.
They were sweet and bitter at the same time, tasting of ginger and
honey and sulphur.
Ben tucked away the tin, put both his hands on Will’s arms, and
looked him full in the face, his green eyes searching Will’s violet ones.
“Listen carefully. Before I came here, I alerted the Institute. There are
warlocks waiting to come to our rescue. But they cannot enter here
unless Phleger invites them in.”
Will almost choked on the candy. “Invites them in? How are we supposed to—”
At that moment, the door to the office jerked open. Trahern entered
first, glaring at Ben and Will as he stood aside to let Brother Phleger
pass. The press conference must have gone very well, for the beaming
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preacher strutted through the door chest first, in mid-command: “Of
course they must print it! I have it here somewhere ...”
Going quickly to his desk, he sank into his chair, clearly meaning
to retrieve some important document. When he saw the heaps of astrological papers and books, he frowned deeply, and his nostrils flared
as if smelling brimstone. Lifting his eyes to Ben, he hissed: “What kind
of demonic sorcery is—”
But then he caught sight of Ben’s face, and the words stopped in
his mouth.
Will himself was shocked by his brother’s transformation. He had
become “Professor Coeus” again in an instant; his chin raised high, his
back strong and straight, his whole body as taut as a predatory cat’s.
But that wasn’t what caught Phleger’s attention—rather, it was the
fervent, intense gleam in Ben’s eyes.
“What’s the matter?” said Phleger, concerned. He glanced at Will.
“Is there something wrong with the boy?”
“Wrong!” Ben exhaled, his voice trembling with excitement. He
gave a wondrous little laugh. “Wrong? No, Brother Phleger. Nothing
is wrong. As a matter of fact, things couldn’t be more right. I have
discovered something incredible—astonishing!”
Phleger’s brow furrowed even more deeply. “What have you
discovered?”
“I almost cannot believe it,” Ben mused, looking not at Phleger,
but rather past him. “It cannot be ... and yet it is—”
“What?” Phleger barked. “What is it?”
Ben’s eyes focused, and he turned his keen gaze on Phleger. “This
young man has just provided me with his birth information,” he said.
“I used it to quickly calculate his astrological chart, thinking it might
be of some use in our efforts. And I discovered that Mr. Edwards was
born under ... a Grand Cross.”
Ben paused to let the import of the statement sink in. But it was
lost on Brother Phleger, for he merely made an impatient gesture.
“Yes? And? So?”
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“Aebedel Cowdray was also born under that particular astrological
configuration. And while I have never told you, for I know you do not
countenance such practices, when I cast your own chart, I discovered
that you too were born under a Grand Cross.”
Phleger’s eyes widened. It was clear that the symbology of a
Grand Cross shining on his birth was of intense and immediate interest to him—and so pleasing, in fact, that he seemed willing to overlook
the fact that he shared the Holy-seeming birthright with the wicked
Cowdray himself.
“But that is not the incredible thing,” Ben seized a sheaf of papers
from the desk, and thrust them close to Phleger’s face, jabbing at specific notes as he spoke. “At this very moment, in the heavens above us,
yet another Grand Cross is forming. This exceedingly rare and powerful configuration, which occurs when each of four planets stands at
a square to the others, creates massive tension—the eternal tension
between good and evil, taken to its furthest extreme. The stage is set,
Brother Phleger, for a magical event of such unimaginable power ... of
such exceptional intensity ... that it literally takes my breath away.” As
if to demonstrate this, Ben drew in a deep gulp of air.
“All right,” Phleger said, slight wariness creeping into his voice. He
pushed the papers aside with disgust, as if Ben were waving a soiled
handkerchief at him. “What does it all mean?”
“It means the box must be opened at the moment the Grand Cross
reaches its most precise alignment,” Ben said. He quickly consulted a
battered pocketwatch. “In exactly one hour.”
The words hung in the air for a moment—but it only took a moment for Phleger’s face to go from consideration to conclusion.
“No,” he said.
Ben looked stricken. “But Brother—”
“It is impossible,” Phleger interjected coolly. “The Consecration
must happen first. We must fortify this Temple, dedicate it and all of
its power to the Lord Almighty. If we conduct the ritual without that
holy sanction, then it is nothing more than witchcraft. And God will not
tolerate it.”
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“You are the Temple!’ Ben cried. “You are sanctified, a man of
God—”
“Precisely so!” Phleger flared. “I am just that—a man. If we fail,
our enemies would gain great comfort—enough, possibly, to empower
them to move against us.” He drew a deep breath, closed his eyes.
“God tells me very strongly that I must wait. I must wait until the time
is truly right, when the ritual can be conducted with all the power of
the faithful behind it.”
Ben made a sound of extreme annoyance and threw the papers
down onto the desk. He seemed ready to storm out of the office in disgust—but instead, he made a great show of collecting himself. When
he did speak again, Professor Coeus’ haughtiest sneer tinged his voice.
He spoke very slowly.
“Clearly, Brother Phleger, you do not understand the gravity of
this discovery. This combination of astrological omens is so powerful—and so utterly unprecedented—that not to take advantage of it
would be the very apex of foolishness.”
Phleger met Ben’s infuriating condescension with an even more
infuriating grin. “I understand that Faith can sometimes seem like
foolishness to a man who does not know God, Professor.”
Phleger’s grin made Ben bristle—but then, all at once, he relaxed.
He took a deep breath, and then he, too, smiled—the knowing, weary
smile of a man recognizing his defeat.
“No, you are right,” he said. “I am not a man of faith. I am a man
of the world, and as such, the ways of the world seem very urgent
and important to me.” He began gathering his charts and books from
Phleger’s desk and carefully replacing them in the suitcase. “I was
thinking more of your secular aspirations than your holy obligations,
and I apologize. It’s just that you have no idea how much additional
power this could lend to the announcement you’re planning to make
after the Consecration.”
Brother Phleger said nothing, just stroked the black blot on his
cheek, absently fingering the discoloration’s slightly-raised edge.
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“Of course, most of that power will still be available even after the
astrological alignment shifts,” Ben said, as if trying to find comfort in
the fact. “Not all of it—nowhere near all of it—but I’m sure it will be
enough.” He sighed as he buckled the suitcase shut. “It’s just that they
say it’s going to be a four-man race next year, and ...” he trailed off.
“Well, never mind. His will be done, as you so often say.”
“It is—not safe,” Brother Phleger said, in a quiet voice. He let his
hand drop, and when he looked at Ben his eyes were pleading. “Don’t
you understand, Professor? A great responsibility has been placed
upon me. I must not fail.”
“You are burdened,” Ben said, and there was real sympathy in his
voice. He laid a hand on Brother Phleger’s shoulder, and the preacher
made no move to shrug it off. “I do understand. I know there are great
forces that oppose you, and you very wisely wish to protect yourself
and your followers from them.” He gripped Phleger’s shoulder more
firmly. “I just want to make one thing very, very clear. This set of
astrological circumstances is so unlikely as to be outside the realm of
possibility. It is, in a word, impossible.”
Ben paused, standing with such stillness that his body seemed
carved of stone.
“As I said, I am not a man of faith.” His voice was low and rhythmic and thrilling. “But if I were to believe in miracles, I could not help
but believe this to be one. If I were a man of faith, there is only one
word I could use to describe the opportunity we are presented with.”
He paused before hitting the last word with an intensity that made it
seem almost physical: “Foreordained.”
Phleger was not looking at Ben now, he was just listening, his eyes
narrowed with careful thought—or rather, with prayer, Will saw, for
his lips were moving and his hands were clasped.
“When the Lord sends a man of faith such a message, Brother
Phleger, should he question it? I don’t know the answer, you must tell
me. And should he question the power of the Lord to shield him?”
Phleger slumped over his desk, resting his forehead on his clasped
hands. He muttered to himself for a long time. Ben did not move a
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muscle. No one in the room did. When Phleger finally raised his head,
his eyes were distant and unfocused, glistening with tears.
“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of
them all,” he whispered, his voice choked with emotion. “Just as the
Lord protected Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they were
cast into the furnace’s fiery depths ... so will He protect us.”
He wiped his eyes quickly with the back of his cuff. In an instant,
his gaze was as keen and sharp as it had ever been. “We will show our
faith by proceeding as you suggest, Professor. We will take the risk,
secure in the ever-loving protection of the Lord. His will be done!”
“We cannot conduct the ritual in the Sanctuary,” Phleger muttered
as he went quickly to the large safe. “It is already filling with the faithful. If the ritual were to be presented as a part of the Consecration,
that would sanctify it in their eyes. But as a piece of deviltry on it’s
own, it would merely befuddle and worry them. That would not do
at all.”
“A wise choice,” Ben murmured, clearly admiring Phleger’s perceptivity, untutored as it was.
“We will use my sanctum sanctorum, the private chapel where I retreat for personal prayer and reflection.” Laying a hand on the safe,
Phleger whispered a prayer, then unlocked it. Withdrawing the snuff
box, he tucked it inside his coat pocket.
Phleger and Ben strode from the office, and Trahern took Will’s
arm, pulling him to follow. As they walked, Will rolled the candies
around in his mouth. The taste was beginning to change; now the
candies had the flavor of grass and memory and blood—and Will’s
body was beginning to feel strange. He was powerfully aware of each
of Trahern’s fingertips digging into the flesh of his arm. They burned.
Brother Phleger’s sanctum sanctorum was situated directly behind the
vestry. It was an intimate space, without the Sanctuary’s grandeur—
but in some ways, it was even more impressive. The walls were stark,
pure white—so white it hurt Will’s eyes. There were no windows and
no trace of ornamentation. Just white walls that stretched up to high
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white ceilings, lit by stark white bulbs. The floor was of glittering white
marble, polished mirror smooth. The room was as cold as an icebox.
There was only one spot of color in the room, and that was on the
far wall—an enormous red cross of stained wood, at least twelve feet
tall.
There was no altar before the cross; instead, there was a single
piece of furniture, low and wide and armless, covered in smooth white
leather.
“I think only the three of us need to be present for this,” Ben said,
looking meaningfully at Trahern.
“Think again,” Trahern growled.
“No, the Professor is right,” Phleger said. “Having four doesn’t
seem right. Three is a more hallowed number.” When Trahern made
no move to leave, Phleger waved him away with an impatient gesture.
“Guard the door. I will call if I need you.”
Ben helped Will lie down on the low ottoman. Will was feeling
very strange now. The brilliant whiteness of the room seemed to press
against his skin, and his very bones ached.
“I will conduct the ritual,” Ben said to Phleger. “You must assume
an attitude of prayer. Beseech God to cover us in his holy Grace.”
Phleger grabbed both of Ben’s hands, and held them for a moment.
“Even though you are not a man of faith,” he said, “May the Lord
be with you.”
Then he went to kneel before the cross. When Phleger could not
see, Ben shuddered and shook his hands as if he’d been shocked by
electricity.
“What is in this candy?” Will murmured to Ben. The words slurred
as he spoke them, and his voice sounded strange within his own ears.
His muscles burned as if he’d just run for miles. Ben looked into Will’s
eyes, assessing something in them, then nodded with silent satisfaction.
“The Gores compounded this potion to help us keep Cowdray at
bay while we conduct the ritual.”
“Help us control Cowdray?”
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Ben nodded. “You’re not trained in magic, but I am. We’re going
to do exactly what Dr. Gore and Irene do. I am going to vamp on
you.”
“It hurts,” Will whispered, his voice hoarse. “It hurts a lot.”
“I know, Will,” Ben whispered. “I’m sorry. But Cowdray will resist
us with every means at his disposal. And we have only one advantage
over him. Your body. Your physicality. The pain is the only way you’ll
be able to keep from being overwhelmed by him. You must use the
pain—be intensely aware of it. You need to use the pain, just like you
used it to break Mother’s Send.”
Will nodded, his head wobbling loose on his neck. The movement
sent agony screeching down his spine. He remembered pressing his
arm against the steam radiator, the pain tearing away the tendrils of
magic that had tried to insinuate themselves through his mind. But
that had only hurt for a little while. This pain was already so much
greater than that. And it was getting worse.
“Ben, it’s too strong,” Will whispered. At the sound of his real
name, Ben quickly looked behind him to see where Phleger was. But
Phleger had not heard; he was kneeling on the cold hard floor before
the cross, shoulders hunched in prayer.
“It’s too strong,” Will gasped again, as a fresh wave of pain surged
through his body. Involuntary tears sprung into his eyes as all his muscles clenched against it.
“I just hope it’s strong enough,” Ben said, as he unbuttoned Will’s
shirt, laying his chest bare.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Will rasped, feeling as if
his words might catch fire for speaking them. He felt himself panting
heavily. “Ben, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!”
“Stop calling me ‘Ben’, for one thing,” his brother growled low.
Then, in a louder voice, he called over his shoulder to where Brother
Phleger was kneeling. “Brother Phleger! I will need the box now.”
Will did not see Phleger rise; he did not see him until the preacher
was standing over him, looking down at him, the snuff box in his
hand. In Will’s pain-swimming vision, Phleger seemed to be—glowing.
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Wisps of brilliantly colored light entwined his entire body, shimmering
threads of red and purple and gold and yellow. The black mark that
slashed from his eye to his chin seemed to throb. Will could not stop
staring at him.
Ben made an urgent gesture. Slowly, reluctantly, Phleger reached
into his pocket and withdrew the silver box. Ben had to take it from his
hand. Ben placed the box gently on Will’s bare chest—over his panicthrashing heart—then laid both his warm hands over it.
Focus on my voice. Ben’s thoughts rang abruptly through his head,
and Will closed his eyes in concentration. Ben’s response was abrupt:
No, keep your eyes open. Open. He seized Will’s chin, gave his head a
little shake. It felt like broken glass was rattling inside his skull. Will
whimpered.
I told you the warlocks cannot come unless Phleger invites them in. So
make him. Tell him to invite them in. Tell him to invite his enemies into this
temple.
Will’s mind swam with confusion. How could he! Phleger would
never—
Ben pressed down on the box. It was the worst agony Will had ever
known, as if his very heart was being burned in the fires of hell. Will
screamed.
Say it! Tell him to invite them in! Command him!
“Invite them in,” Will gasped, but it was a mere whisper against a
maelstrom of suffering.
Louder! Ben pressed down on the box again, and Will thought he
would die. Use Cowdray’s voice! The command in Latin is Invado—scream
it!
“Invado!” Will shrieked, and his voice was Cowdray’s, ringing and
cruel. It made the walls shudder around them. “Invite them in! Invite
in your enemies!”
Phleger leaped to his feet, alarmed. Will’s magically-enhanced
vision allowed him to see the panicked colors glowing around the
preacher. Will could see how deeply Phleger’s power suffused the
very structure around them, how the gleaming threads of magic that
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surrounded him ran like blood-veins through the walls. The light that
pulsed from Phleger pulsed all around them.
“What is he saying?” Phleger bellowed.
“It’s not the boy—it’s Cowdray!” Ben bellowed in response. “He’s
attempting to invade your mind, to take control of you!” Ben pressed
the box down again, making Will babble and thrash uncontrollably.
“You must not let him! Defend your temple!”
With a cry, Phleger whirled and fell to his knees once again, lifting
his hands to the cross and pleading loudly for salvation, for shelter, for
deliverance. Ben slackened his pressure on the box, and Will’s agony
relaxed slightly. He felt himself sobbing.
I’m sorry, Will. Stay with me, just a little longer. Will was faintly aware
of his brother stroking his hair. All of Phleger’s energy will be directed
outward now, flowing out of the temple. We can ride it out. You just have to
break the walls, Will. Break the walls. Believe that we are outside them. Me,
you, Jenny, and your child. All of us. Outside and free.
Free? Why should you be free? I am not, and never will be.
Ben clenched his teeth at the new presence. Cowdray.
A nother K endall! Cowdray seemed to recognize the very flavor
of Ben’s thoughts. A nd a eunuch at that. Seeking to steal a bit of
your brother’s power for your own?
Cowdray will try to bully you, Will—don’t let him! Keep your eyes open.
Stay here. Stay with the pain—
Oh,
but there are so many kinds of pain,
Cowdray said. A nd
you don’t know half as many of them as
I do.
Will was suddenly seized with the uncontrollable urge to close his
eyes. They slammed shut, clenched tightly as fists. But instead of darkness, Will found that he was seeing through different eyes.
Different eyes—but the memories were his.
His, and Aebedel Cowdray’s.
Walls.
Walls of buildings. Buildings made of stone. And lights—so bright. And the
moon—and not the moon.
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It is cold here.
Having just woken in a new body, Aebedel Cowdray tries to remember the last
life he lived. The last time he had woken in a body.
Where am I?
Cowdray pauses in the street, paved with some hard, smooth substance.
Everything around him is smooth, strong, tall. There is so much light.
He pauses and runs his hands along his arms, his torso. He is a man this time.
That is good, very good. It is good to be a man again. A young man. Strong. He
looks at his hands, places them on his abdomen, feels himself breathe. He smells the
air, cold and fresh, tinged with the smell of steel. He is in some very large city, and
he is outside, and it is snowing very hard.
“Will!” Ben’s voice, distant, another time and place. A place where
a huge red cross burned. Will could feel Ben slapping him hard across
the face, but compared with the rest of the pain, the sensation was
barely noticeable. “Will, open your eyes! For God’s sake, don’t let
Cowdray pull you into memory! Use the pain, Will. Stay here! Open
your eyes!”
Will tried. He tried desperately. He struggled against Cowdray,
struggled to crack his eyes open. He summoned all the pain in his body
and all the hatred. He focused on his brother’s words.
“Use the pain!” Ben was roaring. “Use the pain! Think of Jenny—”
A h, yes! Cowdray’s exclamation was bright with cruel inspiration.
Let’s think of Jenny! Tender, supple, moist little Jenny—
“No!” Will screamed, and he realized that he was screaming it
aloud, the extended shriek scorching his throat. He felt Ben’s fist slam
down on his chest, cold silver driving through his heart like a stake.
This time, though, he arched his back to meet the pain, desperately
seeking to intensify it.
The night is bitterly cold, and the snow is falling heavily.
And the moon is full, beautifully full.
Cowdray moves unsteadily along the pavement, remembering how to walk,
savoring the cold. As he walks, he sheds the memories of his last body, discarding
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them like rags of old clothing. He had a woman’s body, before. It was weak. He
killed that woman’s husband with a large knife. That woman’s husband had been
a scientist. A Russian. Cowdray had stabbed him with the woman’s hand, as she
had screamed for him to stop. He decides that he will keep that memory. He will
keep it with the others he carries with him from life to life—bloody, brutal, beautiful
memories.
That woman had a child, Cowdray remembers. A tiny girl with disturbing
violet eyes. Cowdray wonders idly what became of her. Squealing little get of a
Kendall. He wishes he could remember what he did to her. That might be a fine
memory, well worthy of keeping. But he doesn’t remember killing her. Perhaps he let
her live so that she could get other squealing little Kendalls. Squealing little Kendalls
like the boy whose body he now possesses.
Thinking of the boy, Cowdray feels for his mind. It is pinned like an insect,
wiggling. Panicked, terrified, completely devoid of understanding. Cowdray regards
this squirming little creature.
“What are you called?” He inquires aloud, breath congealing white then falling with the hard-driving snow. The boy does not want to answer, but Cowdray’s
power is sufficient to compel an immediate response:
Will Edwards .
Cowdray grunts. It is good to know the body’s name. The body’s name will be
useful. Especially since there is someone following him, someone just as young and
clumsy as the new body he possesses. He turns, startling her.
She is exquisite.
The body he possesses thinks so too, for just seeing her releases a rush of desire
in his blood. The boy feels shame at this, but Cowdray is older. Much older. He
knows what to do with such feelings.
“William!” The exquisite creature says, breath white. She is breathing hard,
her pretty face flushed pink with cold and the exertion of following him. She is
wearing a coat of lustrous animal fur, downy with white flakes. “What’s wrong
with you?”
It is better, for the moment, to pretend.
“I feel strange,” he says, putting weakness in his voice. He rests a hand on her
shoulder to steady himself. Her shoulder is warm and firm and soft, and he leans
heavily against her, hungry to let his hand wander. But not here.
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She draws closer to him, helps him stand. So she trusts him, then. There is
concern in her eyes. Concern, and something else.
Love.
Oh, Cowdray thinks bitterly. This will be sweet. Very, very sweet.
“What’s your name, my pet?” he asks, nuzzling her as he whispers it in her ear,
smelling the fragrance of her hair.
“Jenny,” she says, drawing back to look at him with surprise. “What’s wrong
with you?”
“I’m sick, Jenny,” Cowdray whimpers pathetically. “I’m so cold. We have to
get out of the cold.”
He searches the boy’s memories for a place he can take her. This time the boy
senses his intentions and struggles against him. But it only takes a moment for the
perfect place to reveal itself.
No, Will screams.
“I have to hide,” Cowdray says to her. “You shouldn’t stay with me. I am in
danger. Terrible danger.”
“I’ll stay with you,” she says, wrapping her arm around him to hold him
up. Oh, how loyal she is! How sweet! “I will help you. We’ll go back to the
apartment—”
“No,” Cowdray says curtly. “We cannot go there. It is too dangerous. We must
go someplace else. You have to trust me. You have to trust me ... Jenny.”
Smiling, he leans against Jenny, and she helps him stagger to the Hotel Acheron.
“Will!” Ben is yelling. “Will, fight him. Fight him!”
In the real world, Will is screaming.
Will is screaming, and he cannot stop.
The place is so perfect that Cowdray wonders if the boy is less reluctant than
his constant screaming would suggest. He does desire the girl, after all. Cowdray
is just helping nature along. He closes the door behind them. He is pleased to find
that it locks from the inside. He takes the key and puts it in a pocket inside his vest.
Jenny is standing with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Snow is melting into the soft folds of her coat. Her eyes are worried.
“Why have we come back here, William? This is a terrible place—”
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He seizes her. The worry in her eyes become something different as he kisses
her hard, roughly.
“Stop it!” She tries to pull away, but Cowdray holds her fast. His body is
strong, strong and young. Her struggle fires it.
“Your hair smells like snow,” he says, “Like cold air and ice on the water. I
want to know what your skin smells like.”
With a cry, Jenny pulls away, whirling to the other side of the room, pressing
her back against the wall. Cowdray lets her go. This is just the first salvo, the first
foray. He is assured of victory. There is no need to achieve it too soon.
“I want to leave,” she says. She is breathing hard. She is trembling.
Let her go, the boy moans. Please.
Cowdray removes his coat. He does this very slowly. Once his coat is off, he
removes the key from inside his vest pocket. He shows it to her.
“The door is there,” he says. But as Jenny is moving toward him to take the
key, the boy remembers something else. The boy is so very obliging. Cowdray pulls
the something else out of his pocket, something that shines. A straight razor with a
smooth tortoiseshell handle. The girl is forgotten for a moment as Cowdray unfolds
the shining silver blade. It is a beautiful piece of steel. When he finally does look up
at Jenny, he sees that she has frozen like a startled fawn.
“You bought this for him,” he says, wonderingly. Glee bubbles up within him.
He is young, he is armed, and there is a beautiful girl at his mercy.
“I bought it for you,” Jenny says, voice breaking. “Please. I want to go now.”
Cowdray holds up both hands. In one hand is the key to the door, in the other
hand, the open razor.
“You can go,” he says. “If you can get the key before I can open your throat.
But I don’t think you can.”
Jenny withers like a dying plant. She collapses in on herself. Cowdray has seen
this moment many times. It is the moment when someone realizes that they are going
to die, and there is nothing they can do. Fire courses through his blood again, filling
him with desire.
Jenny creeps backward, away from the door, away from him. Cowdray steps
forward exactly as many steps as she steps back, a lover’s dance.
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He shows her the key again, but she makes no move to take it. He puts it away
with an indifferent shrug. But the razor he does not put away. He holds it in his
hand, turning it over and over.
“Who are you?” Her voice is miniscule. She understands, now. She understands that something is very wrong. She understands that he is not the boy she
knows, the boy she trusted.
“My name is Aebedel Cowdray,” he says. “I have taken this body, and I will
do with it as I wish.”
“How?” The word is a soft moan. “How did you ... take it? Who are you?
What did you do to William?”
“I am an old warlock with an old grudge against his family,” Cowdray says.
He takes another step toward her, watches her cringe. “The moon is full. His body
is mine for the next five days. As is yours.”
Stop it! Leave her alone! The boy’s incessant screams have become loud
enough to give Cowdray pain. He touches his fingertips to his temples with annoyance.
“You want this as much as I do,” Cowdray snarls, putting all the force of his
power into the words, and the boy’s cries are silenced. But Jenny thinks he is speaking to her. She says, in a surprisingly clear voice:
“I don’t want this.” She is trying to catch the boy’s eyes, trying to find him
within Cowdray’s cold approach. “William, please. Please.”
The words fill Cowdray with sudden fury. As if the boy, the pinned insect,
another weak squalling Kendall in a lineage of weak squalling Kendalls, could do
anything to help her. The very idea is a monstrous insult. With an ugly epithet, he
lunges at her, catching the neck of her dress with the razor. It slashes with a very
satisfying sound, the slither of steel on silk.
And then she is the one doing the screaming.
Will felt Brother Phleger and Ben holding him down, holding him
hard. He was aware of his own body, consumed with anguish, thrashing insanely.
“Trahern!” Phleger screamed. And in an instant Trahern was
there too, the weight of his whole body thrown across Will’s legs.
“Cowdray’s too strong for him.” Ben’s voice.
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Will felt tears streaming down his face. The pain was unbearable. But it wasn’t the physical pain. It was the pain of memory, of
Cowdray’s body against Jenny’s, his lips against her skin, his hands on
her throat ...
Will fought now as he could not fight Cowdray then. Trahern,
Ben, Phleger ... he fought them all.
“We have to stop this,” Ben said. His voice was edged with panic.
“But the snuff box! It must be unlocked! He must—”
“It will never be unlocked if he dies, or is driven mad!” Ben barked.
Something was placed at Will’s lips. Glass, warmed by someone’s
body. A phial. Liquid filled his mouth, bitter as death. He swallowed,
and it filled his body with emptiness and chill. He felt himself subsiding and dying. He stopped screaming, and let himself fall gratefully
into oblivion.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Will of God
Four days until the New Moon
W
ill woke to the sound of someone being beaten.
“Devil! Devil, demon, filthy, foul, accursed!” A grunt, and the
sound of flesh slamming against the wall. “Deceiver! Tempter!”
Will opened his eyes slowly, cringing against the brilliant searing
whiteness. Moonlight? No, a white room—a hideous room of snowstorm white, dominated by a blazing blood-red cross. The Sanctum
Sanctorum, Will remembered. His head ached, but his throat ached
more. His whole body ached. He wanted desperately to fall back into
blackness. But someone was being beaten.
“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither
can he do good who is accustomed to doing evil! A bad tree cannot
produce good fruit! And whatsoever does not proceed from faith is
sin!” It was the voice of a preacher, quoting indiscriminately from the
Bible, and it made Will’s flesh crawl. He felt as though he might vomit.
He turned his head just enough to glimpse Ben, and Brother
Phleger. The back of Ben’s coat hung in shredded, bloody tatters—it
looked as though he’d been lashed. The preacher’s face was purple
with rage. Phleger clenched his fingers, and lifted his hand, and Ben
rose into the air. When Phleger struck the air with his fist, Ben slammed
hard against one of the ice-white walls.
“But now I see you, Satan! Old Scratch, monstrosity of evil! I
know your works!” Spittle flew from Phleger’s lips as he stood with one
hand raised like a claw, fingers pointed skyward.
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Ben hung suspended against the smooth wall. With a furious gesture, Phleger thrust his hand down, and Ben slid to the floor, his torn
flesh leaving bloody smears. He slumped, dazed and half-conscious.
Fat drops of blood fell from his bruised face, splashing the cold marble
floor.
Will stared at the blood. He remembered blood. He remembered
so much blood. Everything he’d done to Jenny was in his mind, bright
and sharp as the blade of the razor he’d held. He now remembered
every moment of it.
“You fooled me! You befuddled me with your magic, with your unholy prophecies. You have made me untrue to myself ! You have made
me betray my all-sacrificing Savior!” Brother Phleger stood over Ben,
and as Ben tried to pull himself up to his hands and knees, Phleger
kicked him viciously in the ribs. Ben collapsed again, curling over on
himself.
“Cowdray was too powerful,” Ben rasped, wiping blood from his
lips.
“I knew I should wait,” Phleger hissed down at him. “God told me
I should wait, but you deceived me! You seduced me with your black
sorceries like the snake in Eden! And now you account your work complete, do you not, son of Lucifer? You will see this great work fail, the
works of the righteous trampled in sin and ignorance—”
“There is still the girl.” Trahern interjected in a low voice. The
bodyguard was rubbing his chafed knuckles, clearly having started
physically what Phleger had finished magically. “Shall I go and fetch
her here?”
“No,” Ben staggered to his feet, and the effort made blood stream
from his nose. He spat it away weakly. “I understand Cowdray’s
strength now! You must let me try again—”
Phleger roared, a wordless scream of rage so forceful it made the
walls shudder.
“Get back, Devil!” The words rang with all the force of a holy judgment, and Ben was thrown backward against the wall again. And then,
Phleger seemed to go insane. He opened his eyes so wide the whites
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343
gleamed. He pulled at his hair until it stood on end, tore at his clothes.
He reeled like a drunkard, coming to rest in the middle of the room,
hands raised in wild supplication. “I am beset on all sides! How the
devils surround me! Who knows how God will punish me now! Forgive
me, Lord, for I have had fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness! Forgive your unworthy servant! I have been weak! Forgive me!”
His livid face drained of color, but the black slash across his cheek
seemed to darken. He began to jerk and twitch, and his eyes rolled
back in his head. He collapsed to the floor, writhing. Babbling, nonsense words came out of his mouth.
“Brother Phleger!” Trahern said, falling to the preacher’s side. He
held the man’s head tenderly as he spasmed and shuddered. “He’s
having a Vision, a divine inspiration from all-holy God!”
Trahern held Phleger until his body stopped spasming and flailing.
There was a long moment of silence as the holy man lay on the floor,
panting. Finally, he reached up and clutched Trahern’s hand with the
gratitude of a man just pulled from a sinking ship.
“God has shown me,” he whispered. “God has shown me what to do.”
He climbed slowly to his feet, his balance unsteady. He looked over
at Ben, shaking his head sadly.
“You poor lost soul,” he said softly. “I never needed you. I never
needed your research, nor your damned astrology. My weak human
mind made me believe the answer was very complicated when really,
I needed only what I already had. The all-sufficient grace of Jesus
Christ our Savior.”
Ben released a long breath then—a long, shuddering, defeated
breath. He lowered his head, as if he could not bear to look at the
preacher any more.
Phleger turned toward Will. He extended a hand to him, helping
him to sit up, then knelt before him. Will was surprised at how gentle
and compassionate his gaze was.
“I can chastise the demon that is inside you, my poor child,” he
said softly, raising a hand to stroke Will’s cheek. “You have suffered so
much under his cruelty. You, and Jenny.”
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The words were so tender that Will had to choke back a sob.
“Tonight, at midnight, we will proceed as I originally planned.
We will conduct the Consecration ceremony and fortify this Holy
temple. And we will sacrifice the power of that miserable creature to
the greater glory of the Lord. His will be done.”
Then, slowly, Brother Phleger staggered to the far end of the room.
He looked up at the giant red cross for a moment before falling, once
more, to his knees. But this time he did not lift his hands. He made no
extravagant gesture. Instead, he merely bowed his head and pressed
his forehead to his clenched fists.
“I am humbled by Your forgiveness, Lord,” he whispered, his voice
soft and tremulous. “And I thank You. From the bottom of my sinning
soul, I thank You.”
Will knew that the prayer was more sincere than any the preacher
had ever made. He knew it from the streams of light that were emanating from Phleger’s body, red and purple and gold and yellow, haloing his form with the brilliance of a hundred stained-glass windows.
Phleger knelt like that, hands clenched, his body perfectly rigid, for a
long time. And then he fell forward, sobbing.
Trahern helped him to his feet. Phleger leaned on him heavily.
Trahern helped the preacher walk slowly from the room, holding him
up when he stumbled.
Ben crawled slowly across the room to the low couch where Will
was sitting, leaving a trail of blood-droplets behind him. When he
finally made it, he collapsed against the ottoman’s side, the wounds on
his back smearing the white leather.
“We’re in trouble, Will,” he rasped.
The words made Will laugh. And not just laugh, but laugh hysterically. He collapsed backward onto the ottoman, shaking with humorless convulsions that made tears flow from the corners of his eyes.
Memories burned in his mind like acid. The razor slicing Jenny’s
skin. How it had made the smooth pink flesh blossom red, and how he
had drawn his finger through it. How he had used her own blood to
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345
draw charms on her body, how he’d made her beg for mercy beneath
them.
You want her as much as I do, Cowdray had said.
Yes, he had wanted her. He had wanted Jenny. But not that way.
Not the way Cowdray had taken her. Will wanted to die. It made him
laugh even harder.
“William!” Ben barked. Fresh blood trickled down his chin, and
he wiped it away. “Get ahold of yourself. You’re the only one who can
save us now. Phleger is going to use you himself. He’ll vamp on you
somehow. You have to stop Cowdray from—”
“I can’t!” Will screamed at him. “I couldn’t make him stop hurting
Jenny. I did everything I could to make him stop hurting her. I wanted
it more than anything.” He stared up at the red cross. “I wanted it
more than living. If I couldn’t make him stop then, how can I stop
him now?”
“There’s still a chance. There’s always a chance,” said Ben, though
he clearly had to struggle to put any hope into the words. “Cowdray
has the most power over you when the moon is full. But when the
moon is dark, you have as much power over him. It’s only a few days
until the new moon, Will. Maybe you’ll be able to use that extra bit of
control to your advantage.”
Will shook his head in despair. It didn’t matter if the moon was full
or dark. He would never be able to match Cowdray’s cruelty. Never.
“Why did you tell me to think of Jenny?” he finally said, bleakly.
“Because I hoped your love would be stronger than your guilt,”
said Ben.
At that moment Trahern came back into the room, striding toward them, his face dark with purpose. He dug his fingers into Ben’s
jacket coat, pulled him to standing.
“Praise Jesus, the Brother has finally seen the light about you, you
smug charlatan.” Trahern gave Ben a hard shake. “I would kill you
now, but he doesn’t want the Temple sullied by your unredeemed
blood before the Consecration.” He smirked back over his shoulder at
the gory trail Ben had left on the floor. “Any more of it, anyway.”
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Spinning Ben around, Trahern shoved him hard toward the door,
following as he stumbled forward. “But just you wait until after the
Consecration, Professor. Just you wait and see what kind of fun we’re
going to have then.”
Trahern did not return for Will until just before midnight. And
when he did, he had changed into the long, pristine white robes of an
usher. He did not speak, just set to work with gruff efficiency, lashing
Will’s hands together before him with a piece of stout white cord. He
bound Will’s ankles and gagged him with a piece of red cloth.
Will did not resist any of this. He felt incapable of resisting. He felt
incapable of caring. He just lay on the low couch, limp, staring up at
the red cross.
He had said nothing as Trahern drew the cords painfully tight.
And he said nothing even when Trahern was finished and hissed in
Will’s ear:
“You’re going to make this work, understand? Or I will slice her
belly open myself. I’ll hurt her as much as you’ve hurt the good Brother.
That’s a promise. An oath.”
Will let his eyes slide closed. The image of the red cross burned behind his lids. He felt Trahern lifting him, throwing him over his shoulder like a feed sack. And then Trahern carried him to the Sanctuary.
The Sanctuary was already buzzing with energy and anticipation.
While there was no sunlight to illuminate the stained glass, all the
electric lights blazed. A team of Teslaphone technicians had set up
their equipment in a corner near the front of the great room. They
had hung a broadcasting microphone near the enormous electrical
organ—where Little Sanctity Snow, in a frothy white dress of silken
ruffles and lace, sat poking at the keys ill-temperedly as she waited for
the power to be switched on.
Another technician was laying a carpeted runner over the cord of
a second microphone, on a slender stand of black iron, that had been
placed a few feet in front of the altar. Muttering a curt “Get lost!”
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347
to the man, Trahern placed Will in a kneeling position behind the
microphone stand, facing the crowd.
Bound hands clenched before him, Will stared out into the crowd.
Phleger had not just filled the Sanctuary, he had packed it. Every pew
was crammed to capacity, and the faithful who could not find seats
clustered at the edges of the broad aisles. And all of them were eyeing Will with a mixture of fascination and dread, whispering between
themselves.
They don’t know what Brother Phleger intends to do to me. And they’re dying
to find out.
As Will’s eyes roamed the vastness of the crowd, he saw that Ben
had been put into a special seat in the roped-off front row. Ben’s battered face was puffed and purpling, and one eye was swollen shut. He
was not bound—but what did it matter? There was nothing he could
do to help. Not with Trahern and a hundred of his ushers, all dressed
in white robes, having taken up positions along the Sanctuary’s walls.
Looking away from Ben, Will caught sight of Atherton Hart—and
Jenny.
Just like the petulant child at the organ, Jenny was dressed all in
ruffled white. But her dress had a very high neck and very long sleeves,
and Jenny sat so rigidly in it that the ruffles seemed chiseled, not
draped. Hart sat next to her. He did not sit close, and he did not touch
her, but there was something about his presence that encompassed her,
enveloped her in his protection.
Hart was not a bad man, Will realized, his heart breaking. He was
a fool ... but he was not a bad man.
As if sensing his gaze, Jenny looked at Will. Her blue eyes held his,
and he saw the worry in them. But he looked away quickly, lowering
his gaze to the deep red carpet. He stared at the carpet for a long time.
Then, suddenly, the organ boomed—one crashing chord, flooding
the sanctuary with sound.
Someone had switched on the organ, and Little Sanctity Snow
became like one reborn. She fell upon the keys with the eagerness of
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the starved, tiny fingers flying. There was no sheet music propped up
before her; she seemed to play purely from spirit.
The organ music began with a powerful melody, but before long,
it settled into a strange looping rhythm. A pulsating cascade of sound
that set every member of the congregation swaying. Will couldn’t
quite tell when they began singing along with the organ’s boom and
storm, raising their voices to ride upon its swelling waves, but soon the
song was as loud as the organ itself. But the faithful did not seem to
be singing words. Rather they sang a kind of pure unified chaos, the
sound both perfectly coherent and perfectly meaningless.
Little Sanctity Snow—“God’s Special Snowflake”—was whipping
them into a frenzy.
And when Brother Phleger finally emerged from the vestry, dressed
only in a simple black Sunday suit—nothing flashy, no worldly adornments, only a simple red cross worn around his neck—all of the thousands of worshippers rushed as one to meet him. But not a single person actually moved. It was their energy that flowed toward him, streams
of color and light stronger than any Will had seen around him before.
Closing his eyes, Phleger lifted his hands and received the adulation,
absorbed it with the calm assurance of the righteous.
He did not speak, did not gesture to Little Sanctity Snow to stop
her playing. He probably could not have stopped her playing if he
tried. The girl was in a state of holy seizure, standing now to reach the
keyboard’s topmost tiers. Her white-blonde ringlets flew around her
small screwed-up face. Her eyes were closed tight. It was as if she was
playing the organ with her whole body, not just her hands.
Arms still raised, Phleger began a slow processional circuit around
the sanctuary. First he walked west, and when he came to the westernmost wall he fell to his knees, flinging himself against the glittering
stone, embracing it, kissing it.
The worshippers moaned in unison. Some of them had leapt to
their feet, swaying, arms held high; some had clustered around Brother
Phleger, and were trying to help him stand. These zealots were hustled
roughly back by Trahern’s white-robed ushers. When Phleger finally
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did stand, he wheeled like a drunk, crossing the sanctuary’s broad expanse along the wide aisle that bisected it. Trahern followed him protectively, fists clenched, menacing any supplicant who came too close.
Phleger seemed barely able to make it to the east wall. He collapsed against it, resting his forehead on the marble, breathing hard.
Throwing his head back, he bellowed, beating his fists against the wall
with intense, furious passion. Brilliant coruscations of power crackled
over the white stone, like lightning seeking ground. Several women
fainted. The organ screamed.
Phleger had to crawl along the aisle to reach the huge double doors
at the sanctuary’s southern end. Trahern tried to reach down and help
him along, but Phleger batted him back. And though the preacher
seemed weak as a kitten, his rebuff made Trahern stagger, tumbling
backward into the pews. The faithful set him back on his feet, dozens
upon dozens of hands caressing him as they did.
When Phleger finally did make it to the huge double doors, he
climbed to his feet. It seemed to require a mighty effort. He stood
before the doors on trembling legs, lifting his hands.
Thus is this mighty tabernacle Consecrated, in the name of
God most holy, justified by our Savior’s all-sufficient grace, in
Jesus Christ alone, for His glory alone, according to scripture
alone.
Phleger did not speak the words. Instead they saturated the air.
They were a part of the driving beat of the organ, they formed themselves in the throats of his congregation. He was not speaking to them,
he was speaking through them.
Then Phleger whirled, all his weariness erased in an instant. He
was revitalized, resurrected. He seemed ten feet tall. His body was
heavy with beneficence and compassion. He proceeded up the broad
center aisle toward the altar slowly, bathed in colored light brighter
than any that could have streamed through the stained glass on the
brightest day, and his feet did not touch the ground. He reached his
hands out as he walked, touching and stroking the followers who
fell before him. He tenderly cupped a sick man’s cheek and the man
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collapsed, writhing like one possessed. Phleger lifted a supplicating old
woman and pressed a kiss to her forehead, and when he released her
she dropped like a stone and did not move again.
When finally he came to where Will was kneeling, Will could feel
the heat pouring from his body. His dark suit was soaked with sweat.
He came to stand behind Will, and as he lifted his arms to compel
him to rise, acrid stink poured from his damp armpits. When Will
was standing, Phleger stepped even closer to him, pressing his hot
chest against Will’s back. Taking the snuff box from his pocket, he
wrapped his arms around Will’s sides, holding him tight, and holding
the snuff box out before them both. Gently, he nuzzled his chin into
Will’s shoulder.
“Witness the power of the Lord Almighty,” he whispered in Will’s
ear. “He is our shield and our sword, our ever-ready protector. He will
annihilate the devil that possesses you. He will set things to right. You
have only to believe, dear child. Believe.”
Will shuddered and stiffened as Phleger’s power seized him. As
before, his eyes clenched shut, and he was unable to open them—and
as before, it was not darkness that greeted him. This time, however,
he was in the cold room of snowstorm white with its looming, blazing
red cross. The Sanctum Sanctorum. It was not the real room, Will knew—
rather, it was Phleger himself who was the room, and the sound of the
organ was his walls, and the singing of the faithful was his voice.
And Cowdray was there.
In the room that was Phleger, the old warlock appeared as he must
have in life—elegant and slim and cruel, decked in jewels and embroidery. Standing with his back to the cross, Cowdray regarded Will
curiously, eyes gleaming like a malicious bird’s.
You have returned. A re you very brave, Mooncalf? Or just
very stupid?
But Will could not answer, only move his lips in unison with
Phleger’s voice:
In the name of most holy God, I compel you to my will,
demon!
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Cowdray cringed, hissing, as if he’d been sprinkled with acid.
Wisps of acrid smoke, smelling of burnt flesh, curled up from the folds
of his coat. Will’s heart leapt with vengeful joy. Phleger’s power flowed
through him—Holy power, the power of the faithful. It was good
power, clean and strong.
The Word compels you, spawn of misery! Phleger spoke again,
and the Word became Truth. You are subject to God’s command
now.
Never! Cowdray shrieked, falling to his knees. Flames flickered
around him, blue and orange. Behind him, the red cross pulsed like a
beating heart.
Will suddenly saw that the silver box was in his hands. He did not
hold it; rather, his hands bracketed it, and it hovered between them.
The brilliant light of the snowstorm room bent and wavered around
the box, as if it were submerged in very dark, clear water.
You will open the box so that the power can be sanctified.
The flames engulfing Cowdray flared up, and Cowdray shrieked,
a sound of agony wrenched from the deepest part of his lost soul.
His shrieks filled Will with pure, perfect pleasure—and alongside it, a
desperate hunger that was just as visceral. He wanted to hurt Cowdray
more. He wanted to take everything from him, everything—every iota
of his power, every scrap of his self-control.
Once the power in the box was sanctified, Will knew, it would be at
his disposal. He could use it to shatter Cowdray’s spirit into a million
screaming, smoldering bits.
Open it. Will’s lips moved with Phleger’s voice, but the words were
his own. Show me how to unlock it.
It is unlocked, Cowdray whimpered, curled on a ball on the floor.
It always has been. Open it yourself.
Will looked at the box more closely. And through eyes opened by
the power of the Word, he perceived the reality of it.
It was not a box at all.
It was a door—a door Will recognized.
The door from the Hotel Acheron.
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With the urgency of desire, Will reached for the doorknob.
When he touched it, a rush of suffering more intense than any
he had ever known burned through him. Despair, black and hopeless, made the white brilliance of the room around him vanish into
oblivion. His ears burned with the agonized cries of the souls trapped
within that void. Will felt, in a horrible eternal instant, all of the hell
that lay behind the door.
Gasping, Will opened his eyes.
The reality of the world rushed back in on him—the sanctuary,
the mass of chanting faithful, the thundering crash of the organ, the
smell of Phleger’s body behind him, the tight press of the preacher’s
hot trembling arms against his sides.
Then, Will’s eyes met Jenny’s.
And in Jenny’s eyes, he saw the truth. The real truth. She had
opened the door of the Hotel Acheron, and she had run away from
the horrors within—but she had not escaped. And, Will realized, neither had he. They were both still locked inside, trapped together in
misery, and they always would be.
He couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t open the door.
Opening the box would not sanctify the power, or alleviate the suffering of the souls, Will understood suddenly. The power would poison the world. The suffering inside would not be let out. No. Rather,
all the joy in the world—all the hope, all the love—would be sucked in.
Open the door! Phleger commanded, the organ commanded, the
voice of the faithful commanded in unison. Make the demon suffer
in the hell he created!
And oh, how Will wanted to. How he wanted to make Cowdray
suffer within that hell. But Jenny’s eyes told him that he could not.
That he must not. That he had to find another way.
Returning to the snowstorm room that lay behind his tightly-shut
eyelids, Will withdrew his hand from the doorknob, retreated from
the door. Cowdray, curled up on the floor, breathed like an injured
animal—quick and shallow, yet still ready to strike.
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353
Phleger was the room. But Will was Phleger’s ability to act upon
Cowdray within the room. Phleger could command—but only Will
could act.
Will reached down to Cowdray, his hand trembling.
I cannot allow him to open the box, Will said, and gave Cowdray his
hand. Cowdray took it, and as he helped the warlock to his feet, Will
hated himself. Despised every molecule of his being.
Do you think this act will earn you mercy? Cowdray growled,
thrusting his face close to Will’s. Will barked a bitter laugh.
Just tell me how to stop the preacher, Will said, the words soaked in bile.
Stop him so that he cannot attempt to open the box again, ever.
Get me inside his mind, Cowdray whispered, insinuatingly. I will
handle the rest.
With a cry of disgust, Will opened his eyes again, returned to the
sanctuary. Phleger was clutching him more tightly now—it was clear
that he realized something was going wrong. He was furiously muttering prayers into Will’s ear, his breath hot and moist.
Will’s bound hands hung before him. He inched them to one side.
Struggling against Phleger’s tight embrace, Will was able to get one
hand into the pocket of his trousers. He carefully withdrew the straight
razor. Opening it, he first used it to cut the cord that bound his wrists.
And when his wrists were free, he reached up and placed a hand on
Phleger’s arm, feeling for the place where the preacher’s flesh emerged
from his starched white cuff. With his other hand, Will brought up the
razor. He drew it along Phleger’s skin, slowly, making it hurt as much
as he knew how.
The pain opened Phleger’s mind, just a tiny crack. But that crack
was enough for Cowdray. With a joyous, brutal cry, the warlock’s spirit
slithered into it like a black snake. Tendrils of his spirit probed the
crack and stretched it wide.
Now you are subject to my command, he hissed gleefully.
Phleger screamed.
Will felt Cowdray sending fat, filthy tentacles of control into
Phleger’s mind, invading him. Within an instant, Phleger began
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spewing a vile stream of blasphemous foulness into the microphone
before him. He swore, he spat, he raved. He roared every unclean
word and sacrilegious profanity that Cowdray had collected in every
life he had ever lived.
The shock of recoil from Phleger’s followers was like an icy wave.
Where there had been song, now there was silence—the shocked silence of betrayal. Will felt Phleger’s power waver, then crack, then
crumble.
Then, clenching his fists around Phleger’s arm, stroking his fingers
through the preacher’s warm blood, Will used Phleger’s mind to blast
a message out on a wave of magical power:
Invado!
The sanctuary’s huge double doors burst open in a blaze of light.
Warlocks, hundreds of them in black suits, swarmed inside. The
faithful, already bewildered and terrified, began to scream and run.
They became a stampede, a panicked whirlpool.
The warlocks, operating in Trines, made their way through the
frenzy with calm purpose. They separated off small groups of the horrified worshippers, raising their hands to speak words in Latin. Where
they did, the worshippers dropped, collapsing upon each other in unconscious, quiescent heaps.
Some of these warlocks began pushing their way toward the altar,
where Will and Phleger were still standing, Phleger still holding Will
tight within an unbreakable embrace, still mindlessly spewing profanities into the microphone before them.
As the warlocks drew closer, Will saw something.
He saw that they all wore red orchids on their lapels.
Panic iced him. He struggled within Phleger’s arms.
They weren’t Institute warlocks. They were Agency warlocks.
But it was not the Agency warlocks who reached Will and Phleger
first.
It was Ben.
Ben darted up to the altar. Seizing the broadcasting microphone
that stood before them, he swung the iron down, knocking the snuff
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box out of the preacher’s hands. The magical connection was severed
abruptly, in an explosion of ice-white brilliance. Brother Phleger fell
backward, unconscious; Will fell forward, into Ben’s arms. But Ben
didn’t hold him long. Casting a swift glance over his shoulder, he let
Will slide to the floor.
And then, reaching down and grabbing the snuff box, Ben ran.
Will screamed after him, a wordless shriek of betrayal. He tried to
leap to his feet, forgetting that his ankles were bound. He fumbled for
the razor, slashed the cord.
And then, he heard Jenny screaming.
People were closing in around her, falling around her—and she
was panicking. Her eyes were stark-wide with terror. Atherton Hart
had gotten an arm around her, and was sheltering her with his body,
trying to muscle a path through the chaos.
And then Will saw Trahern. And Trahern, his face purple with
rage, saw Will. He saw where Will had been looking—and a fierce,
frenzied smile curled his lips. Pulling a silver knife from his boot, he
began pushing his way through the crowd, toward the struggling Hart
and Jenny.
“Jenny!” Will cried.
But neither Jenny nor Hart could hear him over the cacophony.
And they didn’t see the bodyguard coming.
Clutching the razor, Will ran with unearthly quickness, Cowdray’s
magic still surging through his body.
Trahern did not stab Hart—just hooked a foot around his ankle
and shoved him to one side. Hart stumbled and fell into the stampedeing swarm around them, and did not rise again. Then Trahern seized
Jenny’s hair and pulled her head back. She struggled against him for
just an instant before the knife flashed down, sinking into her chest.
Will fell upon Trahern with a brutal cry, pulling him away and
slashing his throat in one movement. Blood sprayed, and Trahern’s
fingers fumbled helplessly at the gaping wound. But he fumbled only
for a moment; then he dropped, gurgling.
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Will fell at Jenny’s side. Blood was spreading across the white lace
of her dress, spreading very quickly. He pressed his hand to the wound,
raised her gently, tried to make the blood stop. But it would not stop.
“Oh William,” she sighed softly. “Everything came out all wrong,
didn’t it?”
Fresh hot blood welled up through his fingers with every beat of
her heart. He prayed for any kind of guidance, any kind of grace.
I love you, Jenny.
He did not speak the words, but he saw them reflected in her eyes.
She placed a bloody hand over his, clasped it tightly for a moment.
Then something very heavy came down on his head, and everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alcestis
Two days until the New Moon
W
ill was dimly aware of the sound of his own voice, moaning Jenny’s
name. Someone was trying to comfort him, trying to calm and
soothe him.
“Where is she?” he murmured. “Is she all right?”
“She is alive,” the voice said. A soft, female voice, one that he did
not recognize. “She is alive, Will. She is alive.”
Relief surged through him, and it was enough simply to feel himself breathe.
Feeling his own breathing made him conclude that he, too, must be
alive. He tried to open his eyes, but the light sent pain knifing through
his skull. He retreated back into darkness.
Jenny was alive, he thought.
Praise the Lord.
He did not wake again for some time. When he did, however,
he found that the room was dark, and he could open his eyes—but
only very slowly. He swallowed, his throat dry and scorched. His body
ached, but he was used to the aching by now. He now couldn’t even
remember a time when his body didn’t ache.
He didn’t know where he was. He was in a room, surely, but he
knew he was no longer in the New Faith Seat of Praise. He didn’t
know how he knew it, he just felt the difference. There was energy
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here, power—but a much different kind of power. It ... tasted different.
Smelled different.
He looked around himself, his eyes slowly coming into focus. The
room was luxurious, with high ceilings and carved cornices. It was lit
by old-fashioned gas jets, turned down low. He lay under a duvet of
fine light silk.
When he tried to sit up, he discovered that he could not move. He
was bound even more tightly than when Phleger had held him. He
could turn his head though, just slightly, enough to see that there was
an old woman sitting at the side of his bed, watching him.
She sat in a high-backed wicker wheelchair, slender and erect, her
hands clasped in her lap. She wore all black, in sharp contrast to her
paper-white hair. She regarded him through tortoiseshell glasses.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, and Will recognized the soft,
kindly voice that had comforted him.
“Not very well,” he managed, hoarsely.
“I imagine not,” she said.
“Is Jenny all right?” he asked again. He was afraid the words he
remembered her speaking might only have been a dream. But the old
woman smiled gently.
“She is alive,” she said. “She was wearing a necklace beneath her
dress. A silver coin. It deflected the blade just enough to save her life.”
Will released a long breath. The relief he felt was no less intense
for feeling it a second time. He met the woman’s gaze. “Where am I?
And who are you?”
“You are in the Stanton Institute in New York City,” she said. “I am
Mrs. Zeno, the Institute’s Executive Director.” She paused. “Where is
your brother?”
“Which one?” Will did not mean to sound insolent, for at the moment he could not be if he tried. His mind was a muddle and a haze.
But Mrs. Zeno frowned slightly.
“Benedictus Coeus,” she growled. “Ben.”
Will stared at her, eyes fixed and blurry as he tried to make sense
of his shattered fragments of memory. He remembered the New Faith
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Seat of Praise ... the Consecration. He remembered the blood spreading across Jenny’s breast. He remembered slashing Trahern’s throat.
And he remembered the last time he had seen Ben. His brother
had taken the snuff box and he had run away.
He was opening his mouth to tell all this to the old woman, but
something made him stop. Because suddenly, he remembered something else.
Warlocks wearing red orchids.
Agency warlocks. Ben had said the Institute would help them—but
it had been Agency warlocks who had stormed the New Faith Seat of
Praise. The woman said that he was in the Stanton Institute. But if it
had been Agency warlocks at the New Faith Seat of Praise, then how
the hell had he ended up here?
“Where is Jenny?” he finally said.
“I swear to you that she is safe,” Mrs. Zeno said, with the careful
formality Will recognized as having the magical weight of a guarantee. “And I swear to you that she will remain so. But if I were to tell you
where she is, I could not swear that either of those statements would
be true any more.”
Will absorbed this, and then nodded. He believed her. He did not
know for sure who this woman was, he did not know if she was telling
the truth about anything else, but he felt that she would not lie about
this. There was something about it that was too close to her.
Will tried to stretch against whatever force bound him, but it was
futile. It was as if he’d been wrapped in an invisible cocoon of unbreakable silk.
“Why am I bound?” Will asked. “Will you at least let me sit up to
talk to you?”
“You have been very combative in your delirium, and it was not
known how much of a threat you might pose.” She paused. “I can
unbind you, but I’m not sure I should. Do you have Cowdray under
control?”
“It’s almost the new moon,” Will said, but did not elaborate.
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The old woman considered this, then drew a deep breath and
lifted her hand. She murmured a soft command under her breath.
Will felt the cocooning restraints dissolve away. He sat up slowly, stiff
muscles screaming.
“Thank you,” he said.
There was a brisk knock on the door—more of an announcement
of entry than a request for it—and another woman entered the room.
She was not as old as Mrs. Zeno. Rather, she looked about the age of
Will’s own mother. Her hair was pulled back in a tidy ashen bun, and
her brown eyes were piercing and hawk-like. She wore many layers of
ruffles, as if they were sentries of fabric she had set to guard her.
“This is Professor Coeus’ brother?” her gaze flickered over Will.
“Doesn’t look much like him.”
“Will, this is Miss Hibble,” Mrs. Zeno said. “Miss Hibble is Sophos
Stanton’s personal secretary.”
“They have all arrived,” Miss Hibble said to Mrs. Zeno, not sparing Will another glance.
“I will come and speak to them, but Will must answer my question
first.” Mrs. Zeno turned her eyes back to Will, and behind her glasses
they were clear and strong. “Where is Ben?”
There was strange force behind the question. It made him want
to answer more than anything. But he recognized that force. It was
the same kind Phleger had used—a credomancer’s force of will. He
was not a warlock—and he swore to himself he never would be—but
he had learned many lessons in the past few horrible days. He held
himself firm.
“Why do you want to know?” he countered mildly.
Mrs. Zeno raised an eyebrow. “I should think the answer to that is
patently obvious.”
“Is it?”
“Answering questions with other questions is a very annoying
habit, young man,” Mrs. Zeno snapped.
“Ben taught it to me.”
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Mrs. Zeno’s gaze was appraising. “It seems Ben taught you many
things.”
Will stretched his aching muscles, tested his strength. Looking
down at himself, he saw that they had left him in the same clothes he’d
been wearing at the Consecration, and they were stiff with crusted
blood. Phleger’s blood, Trahern’s blood, Jenny’s blood. He fought a
wave of nausea.
“I’m sorry we could not change you out of those clothes,” Mrs.
Zeno saw the direction of his gaze, and the regret in her voice indicated that she found the clothes as offensive as Will did. “But I could
not release the restraints until I had spoken to you.”
Will said nothing. He forced himself to be strong, to think. He did
not know where he was. He did not know if this woman was who she
claimed to be, or why she wanted Ben—why she really wanted Ben.
He did not know where Ben was. He did not know why Ben had run
away. He had nothing but questions. This woman might not have all
the answers, but she certainly had some of them. So there was only
one course open to him.
“You must want Ben because he has the snuff box,” Will said softly.
“You have me. And you know he can’t use it without me. He can’t use
it at all, really, because he can’t work magic. But I can. I can work a lot
of magic, more than anyone my age should be able to. And before I
tell you anything, I want to know why.”
Mrs. Zeno said nothing. Then, with a gesture of her hand, she
magically bade the wheelchair turn. Miss Hibble opened the door for
her and they were gone.
After a while, Will felt able to climb out of bed. He found that a
pitcher of water had been left for him; he drank it all, not realizing
how thirsty he was until the water touched his lips. Then he went
to look out of the window. The room was on a high floor, much too
high to climb out of. The window looked out over a white landscape
of smooth snow. In the distance, he saw the buildings of a large
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city, glowing with electric lights. New York City. Well, at least the old
woman hadn’t been lying about that.
The door, of course, was locked. That was to be expected. And
it was also to be expected that his refusal to answer for Ben’s whereabouts would not stand unchallenged. About a half hour later, Miss
Hibble returned.
“They would like to see you in the Sophos’ office.”
“Who?” Will asked. “What if I don’t want to see them?”
Miss Hibble frowned. “Oh, stop being so difficult. Your parents
have come.” She gestured for him to follow, but he made no move.
The thought of seeing his parents sent his heart into his shoes. God,
what was he going to tell them? He couldn’t stand in front of them
in these blood-crusted clothes. He was dirty and spoiled and broken.
He’d cut a man’s throat. And did they already know? Did they know
about Cowdray? Did they know what he’d done to Jenny?
“Come on!” Miss Hibble chirped impatiently. Then, seeing Will’s
apprehension, she added more kindly, “It’s all right. They want to see
you. They’re your parents, they won’t bite.”
Will followed her through the halls of the Institute. It was a very
old building, clearly only recently rewired for electricity; the electric
bulbs were bright and harsh. The floors were smooth marble, veined
with gold. The place had a hushed, sober feeling, and as they walked,
dozens of young men peered out from behind half-opened classroom
doors to watch the pair of them pass.
But Will hardly noticed this scrutiny, for he was transfixed by the
fact that everywhere—massed in vases, twining up the walls—were
fragrant red orchids. The exact same kind the Agency warlocks wore
in their lapels.
“Those are very pretty flowers,” he murmured to Miss Hibble.
Miss Hibble allowed a small smile. “They’re the Institute’s signature flower. Emeritus Zeno used to grow them.”
They finally came to an office with a very grand door. Just inside
the door was an antechamber, lined with books, and beyond this antechamber, an even grander office. The stained glass window behind
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the massive desk reminded Will of the bright glass behind the altar in
the New Faith Seat of Praise.
Enthroned behind that massive desk, Mrs. Zeno seemed younger
and stronger and healthier. She lifted her chin, and Will saw that she
had once been quite beautiful.
And in front of her sat his parents, and Uncle Royce.
No one spoke or moved as he entered, but everyone watched him.
It was clear that they’d all been discussing him. Discussing what was to
be done with him. But Will had been through too much to allow others
to decide his fate. He had learned too much. And he was going to use
what he’d learned.
“I suppose you’ve called me here to ask where Ben is,” he said,
before anyone else could speak. “But I’ve decided I’m not going to tell
you.”
Uncle Royce narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“Before the Consecration, Ben and I made an arrangement.”
Will was surprised at how smoothly the lie rolled off his tongue. “We
agreed on a meeting place. But I’m not going to tell you where that is.
Unless you answer my questions.”
“We don’t have any answers for you,” Uncle Royce said, looking
between Father and Ma’am. “We’ve just come to bring you home.”
“That’s a lie,” said Will, turning a calm gaze onto him. “I don’t
know where we really are, the Institute or the Agency, but these people
are not about to let me go back to California, not with Cowdray’s
power inside me and that snuff box just waiting for me to find it.”
Mrs. Zeno tensed. “I have already told you. You are in the Stanton
Institute.”
“Am I?” Will said. “But why would Agency warlocks bring me here?
And why do Agency warlocks wear the Institute’s signature flower in
their lapels?”
“The Institute has an amicable enough association with the
Agency,” Mrs. Zeno lifted an eyebrow. “We are an institution of credomantic learning. Of course we train—”
364
“And why is it the Agency who destroys those books? The Goês’
Confession?” Will continued, as if she had not spoken.
Mrs. Zeno eyed him warily. “They destroy them because they are
seditious trash, designed to undercut our noble Sophos,” she said.
Will smiled to himself, nodded. “Seditious trash. That’s exactly
what Bernays called them too.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “But
why should the Agency care about your noble Sophos’ reputation?
He’s your leader. Unless—” Will fell suddenly silent as understanding
overtook him. “Unless he’s their leader too.”
Will suddenly perceived that his father was looking at him strangely,
in a way Will didn’t recognize. What was that in his eyes? Admiration?
But it was Ma’am who rose, and rushed over to where Will was
standing, and hugged him desperately close.
“Will, stop,” she whispered. “Please. Please stop—thinking. Just tell
us where Ben is.”
And Will hugged his Ma’am back, but he did not stop thinking.
Instead he thought harder.
“So if the Institute and the Agency are the same thing, then does
that mean that Dreadnought Stanton is the head of the Agency too?
Is he the one who receives the messages from Alcestis? Is he the one
who receives the names of Old Users that the spirit of the Earth wants
killed and sends assassins after them?”
“God, no!” Father and Uncle Royce both blurted, at almost exactly
the same time. They looked at each other, and Will looked between
them.
“Then who is?”
Silence.
“One of you knows,” Will said. He looked down at his Ma’am,
who was still holding onto him fiercely. “I’m guessing all of you know.”
Ma’am released him from her embrace and went back to sit by
Father, sinking heavily on the couch. Father placed a steadying hand
on her shoulder.
“It seems we’re going to have to tell him after all,” Mrs. Zeno said.
“Apparently he already knows much more than we expected.”
Alcestis
365
Apprehension paled Ma’am’s face. “No, don’t.” She looked anxiously at Father. “I don’t want him to know.”
“He has to, Emily,” said Father, softly.
“I’m the head of the Agency,” Uncle Royce spat curtly, as if disgusted by the sudden outburst of emotion in the room. For a moment
Will thought Uncle Royce was simply making a stupid joke, but then
he realized that his uncle was dead serious.
“You? How could you be the head of the Agency?” Will gestured
around himself. “The Institute is in New York, and you live in San
Francisco!”
“My house has a private Haälbeck door. I can come through to
New York any time I like.” Royce leveled his gaze on Will. “But I don’t
need to. My primary duties are in California. With your mother.”
Ma’am had pressed her face into Father’s shoulder. She wasn’t crying, only hiding. Father remained still, his hand resting on her back.
“The head of the Agency ... works with the witch called Alcestis,”
Will was unable to believe the words even as he spoke them. “The
witch who made a psychic connection with the spirit of the Earth.
The witch who tells the Agency ... who to kill.” He paused, anguished.
“Ma’am?”
Ma’am said nothing, just rocked her face back and forth against
the fabric of Father’s coat in silent refusal—not of the fact, but of
Will’s knowledge of it.
“But ... you’re my mother,” Will said. “You bake pies and feed
chickens and grow flowers. How could you be ... that?”
“Leave her alone, Will,” Father growled in warning.
“Is that why you went mad after Catherine died? Because it was
you who told the scientists to implement the Anodyne? Because you
knew it was your—”
“Leave her alone,” Father roared, surging to his feet. He had to
catch himself for balance when his game leg failed him.
“What really happened to your leg?” Will whispered, looking at his
father. “Ben said it wasn’t a riding accident.”
366
“It wasn’t a riding accident,” Father hissed. “But it was an accident
nonetheless.” He sat back down slowly, putting his body close to Ma’am’s
trembling one.
“So I’m not the only one in this family who’s been cursed,” Will
said. “Whose been forced to live with something—terrible.”
He went over to his Ma’am and touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry,”
he said. “I’m so sorry.” She reached up and clutched his hand, but did
not look at him.
“Now we’ve told you everything you wanted to know,” Royce
snapped. “So tell us where Ben is.”
“You haven’t told me anything I wanted to know,” said Will, releasing his mother’s hand. “And you certainly haven’t told me what I need
to know. And that’s why Bernays—your employee, a murdering sonof-a-bitch—said what he said to me in Detroit. He said that his boss
told him that I hadn’t had the Panchrest. But you were there, Uncle
Royce. You helped Father give it to us. So why did Bernays say that?”
Uncle Royce narrowed his eyes, frowning at Will. But it was Father
who finally spoke.
“Because I never did give you the Panchrest, Will.”
“What?”
“It’s why I didn’t want you to take the apprenticeship at Tesla
Industries. It’s why I tried so hard to find you in Detroit, to make you
come home. Because I knew there was a chance you might inherit the
curse.”
“Why didn’t you tell me!” Will’s whole body felt suddenly numb.
“Do you know, Father? Do you know what I did? What Cowdray
made me do?”
Father’s eyes slid closed for a moment, his face anguished. “Yes, I
know.”
“Why didn’t you give me the Panchrest?” Will’s voice was so thin it
was hardly a voice at all, rather a thread of pain. “Why protect all my
brothers but not me? Did you hate me even back then?”
“I never hated you,” Father said very softly. “And I’m sorry. But I
had no choice. I swear it to you. I had no choice.”
Alcestis
367
Will stood looking down at his father for a long time. He didn’t recognize him at all. His face was familiar, he knew that it was his father
... but he didn’t know who the man was. The tension of the moment
was broken when Uncle Royce stood, stretching with an exaggerated groan. There was a broad smile on his face—strangely enough,
he seemed to have found the whole exchange darkly humorous. He
clapped Will on the shoulder.
“You see, William,” he began, “your father—oh, and by the way,
he and I are not really brothers, thank God, so you needn’t call me
Uncle anymore—your father has always been, and always will be, a
traitor and a cheat. And a liar, of course. But as the old saying goes, all
credomancers are liars.”
“Father’s not a credomancer,” said Will.
“He used to be,” Royce said, leaning forward to put his head close
to Will’s. “A very notorious one. So notorious he was forced to sell his
name to the Institute simply to live in peace. And we have done so
much with it ever since.”
“What name?” Will whispered.
“Dreadnought Stanton,” Royce said.
Will whirled on him, eyes blazing. “My mother’s Alcestis and my
father is Dreadnought Stanton?”
“No!” Father barked. “I am not. I am nothing and no one. I’ve
been a father and a husband for over thirty years—and that’s all. What
the Institute has done with the name has nothing to do with me.”
“With one very notable exception,” Royce looked at Father
hard, and there was challenge in his eyes. “The little matter of the
Defalcation. Would you care to explain that to your son? Explain to
him how you’re not only a liar and a traitor and a cheat, but a welcher
as well?”
Father looked down at the floor, his gaze hard and resigned.
“You see, when your father sold us his name, all those many years
ago, part of the deal was that he would never attempt to reclaim his
power,” Royce said. “Of course, we knew better than just to take him
on faith—we required him to seal the magical channels in his body so
368
that reclaiming it would be a physical impossibility. In effect, he took
the Panchrest himself, though in a much different form. This was our
assurance that it would be safe to use his name to build our power.”
“Use his name—to build your power?”
“Dreadnought Stanton’s heroic exploits fuel the power of the
Stanton Institute.” Royce said. “It doesn’t matter that they’re not the
exploits of a real man. It doesn’t even matter that they’re not real
exploits, just thrilling fictional accounts with the sketchiest foundation
in magical truth. What matters is that people believe he is real, believe he
is our Sophos, and believe that he is the most powerful warlock in the
United States.”
“Then there really is no Dreadnought Stanton,” Will said softly.
“So what is this—Defalcation?”
“It happened in 1892, just after you were born,” Royce said. “Your
father decided that he wanted to be Dreadnought Stanton again.”
Ma’am was sitting up straight now, listening. Her violet eyes were
intense and bright, and Will realized that they’d never told her any of
this either. He felt a strange comradeship with his mother at that moment. You didn’t tell things to the magically afflicted—whether they
were cursed by an ancient vengeful warlock or by the spirit of the
Earth itself. You didn’t let them make their own choices. You made the
choices for them.
“You developed Black Flu almost immediately after you were
born,” Royce continued. “And if nature had taken its course, you
would have died even more quickly than Catherine had, eight years
earlier.”
“I—had the Black Flu?” Will struggled against shock.
“Yes. And you would have died, and Emily never would have
survived it.” Father’s eyes held Royce’s with the heat of an old fight
rekindled. “I took just enough power to save him—to save my son.”
“You vamped on me,” Will murmured.
“No,” Father said. “I vamped on Ben.” He turned his green gaze
onto Will. “I couldn’t have vamped on you, Will—you were already
dying from Exunge allergy. Ben was there. He wanted to help.”
Alcestis
369
“He helped you—he saved my life—and then you betrayed him,”
Will said. “You gave him the Panchrest. No wonder he hates you.”
“You’ve read The Goês’ Confession, Will,” Father said. “You know
there are only two choices. It was either the Panchrest—or the knife.”
“Personally, I would have preferred to drown the whole litter of
you—” Royce began, but Mrs. Zeno silenced him with a curt gesture.
She turned her intense gaze onto Will.
“The Institute demanded that you and your brothers be given the
Panchrest. Your father had violated his contract with us, and it was
necessary to eradicate the possibility that he might attempt to do so
again.” Mrs. Zeno drew a deep, weary breath. “But more importantly,
Will, it was necessary to give the Panchrest to you. Because your father stole something far more precious than just a small amount of
Dreadnought Stanton’s power.”
Father groaned softly, but did not speak. Will looked from him
back to Mrs. Zeno.
“What did he steal?”
“A piece of Dreadnought Stanton’s soul,” Mrs. Zeno said. “He
grafted it onto your own to give it strength. To save your life. But
it did far more than that. It gave you a magical claim upon all of
Dreadnought Stanton’s power. It is why you can use so much magic
without physical harm.”
“That means ... he’s like an Old User in a boy’s body,” Ma’am
mused, almost too quietly to be heard.
“That’s exactly what he is,” Royce snapped at her. “A boy. A boy
who has been handed power that he doesn’t deserve, hasn’t earned,
and hasn’t the slightest idea how to use.”
Royce walked around behind Father. Resting his hands on the
back of the chair Father sat in, he leaned over him to whisper, accusingly: “But you just couldn’t stand the thought of really giving up all
that power, could you? If all the boys had the Panchrest—why, that
would be too permanent. Too final. You had to make sure there was still
a loophole—one just big enough for a rat to scurry through someday.”
Royce pushed himself up and stood straight. He looked at Will. “And
370
so, your father palmed the real Panchrest and gave you a dummy.” He
shot an acid glance at Mrs. Zeno. “I told you I should have been the
one to give them the Panchrest. You should have insisted. Forced him
to comply—”
“He is their father,” Mrs. Zeno interjected softly. “And he was
once my Sophos. I owed him that, at least.”
“An Old User ... in a boy’s body.” The words came from Ma’am.
She had risen, and was clutching her gut. Her face was pale as snow,
and she looked stricken.
“Ma’am?” Will said.
“No,” she whispered, bringing her hands up to her head. “Oh
God, no. No ...”
Father reached up to her, concerned, but she pushed his hand
away, folding over herself in sudden pain.
“Why did you let me hear?” she screamed at them—at Father
and Royce particularly. “Why didn’t you tell me to leave?”
She collapsed to her knees.
“Not Will,” she murmured, and her voice sounded strange—hollow and vibrating. “Not Will.”
But then she lifted her face.
And her eyes were entirely black, from lid to lid.
He must be destroyed, Ma’am roared, her voice shaking the
walls, shaking the floor beneath them with the force of an earthquake. It was not Ma’am speaking, Will realized. It was Alcestis,
the voice of the spirit of the Earth, delivering a terrible judgement.
Delivering it to the head of the Agency—
This is my command.
“Emily, no!” Father screamed, falling beside Ma’am. “Royce,
help me!”
But Royce could do nothing as Ma’am threw Father violently
aside. His body slammed against the wall with bone-shattering force.
You will comply with the terms of the Settlement.
Her voice was low and resonant and old, and it did not come
from her body, but from all around her, from the very earth and air.
Alcestis
371
Comply!
“That. Is. Enough!” Mrs. Zeno, rising behind the desk, brought
both fists down on the wood with a thunderous slam. The resounding power of the sound buffeted Ma’am, and she staggered. Anger
crackled across her face like a snapped whip. She barked a command.
The panes of the stained glass window behind Mrs. Zeno wobbled, then bowed, then shattered inward. Will threw up his arm reflexively, but none of the sharp shards made it that far. Instead, with
unerring accuracy, they pierced the body of Mrs. Zeno. She stood
standing for a moment, her face sad and surprisingly lovely, and then
she slumped forward slowly, blood spreading across on the papers on
which she had fallen.
Comply! Ma’am roared again. Cold air streamed in through the
ruined window, and Ma’am’s skirt whipped around her ankles. Her
hair, unbound, caught flakes of snow as they blew in. Her black eyes
gleamed. She turned to Royce.
Kill him. She howled. Kill the Old User.
Royce’s face was grim but resigned. Lifting his hands, he began
to chant in Latin.
R idiculous, Cowdray’s voice echoed in Will’s head.
And strangely, Will found that he agreed.
Seizing a piece of glass from the floor, he slashed himself with it,
rubbed blood between his hands. Power surged within him, as if his
whole being had been charged with electricity. He lifted his hand,
and brilliant force gushed in a crackling torrent from the very center
of his palm. Royce staggered back, unable to withstand the enormity
of the onslaught.
Ma’am shrieked ferociously, and made a gesture of terrible
violence.
Her attack made Will feel as though he were shattering into a
million pieces. Ma’am’s magic was infinitely more powerful than
anything Royce had been able to muster, or Phleger even. It was an
insane kind of power, wild and primal and heedless, like thunders-
372
now and earthquakes and crushing waves. Will could not perceive
any end to it.
The world tumbled around him. He could not tell if he was
standing or falling. That power would break him, like being crushed
beneath huge ancient stones. Cowdray screamed, whore of a
K endall! and tried to lash out, but Ma’am’s power constrained the
vile old spirit easily. It tightened around Will like vines, like roots,
choking him. He felt himself being smothered—so quickly and easily
overpowered. Panic gripped him.
“Ma’am,” Will gasped. “No!”
Ma’am blinked.
Her eyes remained black, but she had heard him. Ma’am had
heard him. She put her hands over her mouth.
“Will—” she whispered.
In that moment of opportunity, Will struck. He did not know
why he did it—was it Cowdray? But power surged within him, pure
reflexive power, unbidden, uncontrolled. Every ounce of force within
his body surged against his mother. And all around her, everything
caught fire. Every book, every scrap of paper, every broken splintered
shard of wood, every tumbled bit of debris, burst into brimstoneblue flame, all consuming, flaring up with unearthly intensity.
His mother fell.
It took Will several moments to come back to himself, and in
those moments the fire spread with devastating speed, billowing up
the walls, licking the tin ceiling. Thick black smoke choked the air.
Glowing embers fell like rain.
“Will!” Father’s voice, coming from somewhere within the black
smoke and chaos.
Covering his mouth and nose with the fabric of his sleeve, Will
staggered across the room toward the sound of his father’s cry,
stumbling over ruined furniture and shattered glass. With a horrible
cracking sound, a large beam of the roof collapsed in a fountain of
sparks, and the blue flames rose to consume it with fresh intensity.
The heat drove Will back, and he reached into himself for magic, for
Alcestis
373
anything he could use to help ... but the magic was no longer at his
command. There was nothing left inside him. He was empty, bled
dry.
The heat drove him back, step by agonizing step, toward the open
window, toward the cold clear night air and the wildly whipping snow,
toward the perfect darkness in which no moon showed.
Epilogue
new moon
O
n New Year’s Day, an enormous crowd began gathering for the
premiere of The Warlock’s Curse well before sunrise. After the ball
dropped in Times Square, the throngs pushed their way down 44th,
jamming the narrow street in front of the Belasco Theater. They
came even though it was snowing heavily—in freakish, unaccountable amounts. They came, drawn by the stark, enormous headlines
that had dominated the front pages of all the newspapers for the
past two days:
Fire razes the Stanton Institute. Hundreds Killed
Sophos Dreadnought Stanton—Dead
The headlines were of sufficient enormity that they had pushed
even the most titillating reports of Brother Phleger’s horrifying
mental collapse (which had been broadcast to tens of thousands of
homes live on the Teslaphone) below the fold.
Everyone, all the hundreds and hundreds of people waiting
outside the theater in the driving snow, wore black.
Everyone, except one young man, who did not have any black
clothes to put on. He had only burned and dirty ones, stiff with so
many kinds of blood he’d lost count. As he pushed his way through
the crowd to the door of the theater, press-camera flashbulbs—
aimed at some more important personage—exploded around him.
Epilogue
375
The young man cringed like a repulsive crawling thing from which
a rock has been lifted away.
It should have been difficult to sneak into the theater, with so
many people clamoring for entrance, and so many Edison Studios
representatives guarding the doors. But the young man merely
rubbed a few drops of blood between his fingers, muttered bilebitter words under his breath, and the theater ushers and publicity representatives turned their heads the other way as he passed.
He hated the blood, hated the charms—but sometimes they were
useful.
The young man knew only what he had read in the newspapers.
Dreadnought Stanton was dead. That must mean Father is dead, he
thought. Because there was no real Dreadnought Stanton, only a
name on a page, soon to be a picture on a screen. He did not know
if Ma’am was dead, because the papers didn’t say anything about
her. But he knew that Mrs. Zeno was dead. And Royce ... well, the
young man found that he didn’t care what had become of Royce.
The newspapers reported that the Institute had burned with an
unearthly flame that all the city’s firefighters, working in shifts, had
not been able to extinguish. The blue flames had raged for days
until everything, everything had been consumed—leaving nothing
but baked earth.
But the young man did not need the newspapers to tell him
that. He had watched the Institute burn with his own eyes, blue and
purple flares shooting from the roof like fireworks.
Well done , Cowdray had said, admiringly.
The moon was dark, so the young man had more control over
Cowdray than at any time during the month. When Cowdray
had spoken, the young man had sunk his teeth into his own arm,
hard enough to draw blood. He had given Cowdray the pain. And
Cowdray had winced, and stored another grudge to be paid back
when the moon was full again. But the young man wasn’t ready to
think about the moon being full again. He wasn’t sure he wanted
to live that long.
376
The young man didn’t know where Jenny was, but he felt certain
that Mrs. Zeno had been right. It was better that he didn’t know.
And he didn’t know where Ben was, either. The young man
reached into his pocket and withdrew a crumpled piece of stationery. Ex Fide Fortis, read the scroll clutched in the eagle’s dirty claw.
From Faith, Strength. Midnight had passed. The world had rung in a
new year. Perhaps there would be new writing on it.
But it was still completely blank, front and back.
“Do you want some candy?” It was a girl asking him this, a
girl standing behind the refreshment counter. She was dressed in a
tidy white apron, and she had a round, soft face framed by shining
brown curls. The young man stared at her for a moment. She was
looking at his scorched and ragged clothes—but her eyes were filled
with sympathy, not contempt. She smiled at him, leaned in a little
closer. Her hair smelled like flowers.
“I’ve got plenty,” she whispered. “I’ll give you some.”
She bent down behind the counter, and as she did, the young
man felt suddenly angry. Why should she be able to smile like that?
Quickly, he snaked a hand into her till and grabbed all the paper
money he could. By the time she had risen, a box of chocolates in
her hand, he had vanished into the crowd.
He stuffed the money into his pocket and climbed the stairs
to the balcony, climbing all the way to the back row, high enough
almost to touch the coffered ceiling set with octagons of stained
glass. He did not take a seat, but rather pressed his back against the
wall. While the theater’s deep stage had been fitted with a special
projection screen of Edison’s own design, it was not a very good
place to see the picture. But he didn’t need to see it. He knew the
story.
Still, he watched it as it all unfolded on the screen. The story
of a farmboy, possessed by a devil, his face bisected into halves.
Good and evil. The celluloid images flickered, silver shadows on a
silver screen. He watched the farmboy destroy the girl he loved—
ah, but no, in the movie, she was saved. They were both saved.
Epilogue
377
They were saved, and redeemed, and blessed, and they lived happily ever after.
In the audience, people were crying.
But in the balcony, the young man was crying the hardest of
them all.
To be continued in The Unsteady Earth
Book 4 of the Veneficas Americana series
Coming in 2013
About the Author
M.K. Hobson’s debut novel, The Native
Star, was nominated for a Nebula Award in
2011 (it didn’t win.) She lives in the first city
in the United States incorporated west of the
Rockies. Her favorite authors are Theodore
Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Booth Tarkington,
Gore Vidal, and William S. Burroughs. The
Warlock’s Curse is her third novel.
www.demimonde.com
Literary Representation
Ginger Clark
Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Ten Astor Place
New York, NY 10003
Telephone: (212) 473-5400
Fax: (212) 598-0917

Untitled - MK Hobson

Transcription

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